


Last Minute

by JWade



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:27:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 44,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7752223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JWade/pseuds/JWade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel is resurrected just in time to pull Sam's soul into a clone before he falls into the pit. Sam's soul doesn't seem to want to fuse with his new body though and there are complications. How far will Gabriel go to save the hunter?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Gabriel let out as gasping breath as he suddenly sat straight up from his prone position. He looked around confused for a moment, seeing the ashes of his wings on either side of them. He could just make out the three distinct sets and there were very few options as to whose wings they were, and given that he was lying in the middle of them, and the fact that he could still remember his big brother’s blade slicing through his chest, it wasn’t much of a guess that they were his. I just didn’t make sense though. He was alive and he could feel his grace burning in him. It took him a few moments for his disorientation to pass enough to realize that he must have been resurrected, and there was only one being strong enough to resurrect an archangel. He’d heard that Cassie was resurrected once, but never expected to be treated to the same fate himself. He certainly hadn’t earned it. Unless it was just dying for the Winchesters that earned that right of course. That was the only thing he could think of that he and the little seraph had in common after all. 

Speaking of… he tuned into the Winchesters to try and get a read on where they were. He assumed they were still warded, and would be difficult to find, but he was in luck. Dean was praying right now. In a manner of speaking at least. He was calling for help…for both himself and Sam. It wasn’t focused along any prayer channel, and he had only found it because he was looking for it, but it was clear enough for him to follow to the hunter’s side, invisibly of course. 

Gabriel arrived just in time to see Sam stumble away from Dean’s body and say, “It’s okay Dean. I’ve got him.” Gabriel’s jaw just dropped in shock. He couldn’t process the fact that his brother was now in Sam’s body. It was no secret that he harbored a little infatuation with the hunter, and seeing him like this was a tough blow. But Sam had overpowered Lucifer. How was that even possible? Sam had control in Lucifer’s true vessel. It shouldn’t have been possible, but here they were. It wasn’t until he saw the cage open that he realized what Sam’s plan was and he started to panic. No. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. 

Gabriel quickly made a clone of the hunter and yanked his soul into it, just in time as Lucifer in Sam’s original body, and Michael in what must have been a backup vessel tumbled into the pit. Gabriel whisked Sam off to a secluded place while his soul fused with the new body, sparing no thought for the grieving brother left in the graveyard, not seeing the second resurrection of Castiel, and subsequent resurrection of Bobby Singer. All he was concerned about was the hunter who nearly sacrificed everything to save the world. 

 

They arrived back at Gabriel’s most secluded and well-hidden safe-house, and the newly resurrected archangel settled the unconscious hunter into the luxurious bed before he turned away and pinched the bridge of his nose with a heavy sigh. That wasn’t well thought out at all. Now what was he supposed to do? Just sit around and wait for Sam to wake up? That could take weeks. A soul fusing with a new body could be a delicate process. Especially when that body was a hastily created clone. It wasn’t the sort of thing where he could just pop in and out as he pleased. He needed to be nearby in case of any problems. 

Gabriel got up and started pacing the room. What was it about this annoying little hunter that kept making him do stupid things? Granted this wasn’t as bad as actually dying for him, but it was still a complication that he didn’t need. Oh well. He could endure a few weeks of babysitting, then Sam would be back to his life and he would be left alone. Gabriel steadfastly ignored the slight pang he felt at that. Alone was better. He didn’t need anyone to judge him or argue with him or try to tell him what to do. He preferred being alone. He was almost able to convince himself of that. 

He realized that his thoughts were straying into unhealthy territory so he pushed it from his mind and snapped his fingers, manifesting a large leather sofa in his bedroom and a large screen television, with appropriate accoutrements, brushing off the feeling that silence fit the situation better. That was a ridiculous thought. It wasn’t like the noise would bother Sam or hinder his healing in any way. It was just one of those inane human notions that had somehow gotten stuck in his head over the millennia he had been living among them. As if to prove a point, he turned the volume on his movie all the way up and snapped up a giant self-refilling bowl of caramel popcorn. 

After the fourth movie, he was getting bored. Being stuck in this room for the foreseeable future was going to be a nightmare. He was already about to crawl out of his skin and it hadn’t been half a day. He couldn’t go far though. He needed to keep a portion of his grace monitoring Sam for any signs of trouble and he couldn’t do that from outside this room. And taking Sam with him wasn’t an option either. He needed to remain stationary or the process could be interrupted. Part of him was tempted to just take off and whatever happened, happened. He had tried after all. He’d done his part. It was up to Sam now. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t do that. Not understanding his own actions wasn’t something he was accustomed to or particularly enjoyed. In the end he just sat back on the couch with a huff and tried to find another movie that hopefully wouldn’t bore him to tears. With any luck, Sam would wake up sooner rather than later and they could go their separate ways. 

By the end of the first week, Gabriel had given up on the idea of this all being over quickly. He had spent a lot of time watching movies and tv shows, playing video games, reading books, but he was just so sick and tired of staring at these same four walls. He was actually starting to get claustrophobic and wasn’t that just crazy. Angels didn’t get claustrophobic, and certainly not him. He had spent a great deal of time pacing the room as well, sometimes with the television on in the background, sometimes in silence. Every time his thoughts started getting too deep into his own motivations, he found himself straying into uncomfortable territory and quickly changed directions, finding something else; anything else; to occupy his mind. 

By the end of the second week, he had busted up the television and video game systems in a snit, his hair was standing on end as a result of him running his hands through it too much, his clothing was all askew, and he even had a five o’clock shadow, not really bothering to keep up with his vessel’s appearance as much as usual. He didn’t see much point at the moment. He had spent the entire time trying to simultaneously monitor the still comatose hunter for any complications and keep his mind off him. It wasn’t like this was his first infatuation with a human after all and he would never have considered going to all this trouble for one. That thought seemed to send him on a downward spiral towards everything he had been trying to avoid thinking about so it was easier to try and keep his mind occupied. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done when trapped in such a limited space, and not even able to do things such as sleep, he had far too much time on his hands, even with his ability to pull just about anything out of thin air. 

By the end of the third week, he had smashed three more television systems, not that you could tell since he did actually clean up the mess. He could heal any cuts his vessel got from the broken glass, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable. He had taken to changing the wallpaper multiple times a day, just for a change. He could easily put up an illusion of being outdoors, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He would have been able to see through the illusion with no effort at all defeating the entire purpose. Illusions were for weak-minded beings like humans and demons and sub-human creatures. They did nothing for him. It was the same with expanding the room. There was little point. He could change the appearance though and change it he did. Almost hourly even. It didn’t help much, but at this point he would try anything. 

It wasn’t until they were nearing the end of the fourth week that Sam’s new body started rejecting his soul, and Gabriel started to panic. He couldn’t let that happen. If his soul was rejected from this body, it would return to his original one which was in the cage with Lucifer and Michael. He absently wondered if they were doing something from their end in an attempt to keep his soul tethered to his old body. Well whatever it was he couldn’t let them win. There was only one problem. The only way to force his soul to fuse with this body was to use his own grace to do it and that would mean binding himself and Sam together for eternity and in no way was that a good idea. If he thought he was trapped now, that would be a hundred times worse. He had no illusions that Sam would just accept Gabriel’s life as is and since they would be forced to be in close proximity for the rest of forever, he would be subject to constant judgement and nagging. And that was if Sam didn’t kill him for binding them in the first place, regardless of the fact that Sam would die too. That wasn’t even considering the fact that as much as he would love to fuck the hunter senseless, the idea of having no one but Sam ever again was highly disagreeable.

As all this was running through his mind, he felt Sam’s soul start to lurch out of this body, and he wrapped his own grace around it. He wouldn’t be able to hold it for long like this. He had to make a choice and fast. Did he let go or did he trap them both forever?


	2. Chapter 2

Gabriel could feel Sam’s soul fighting to leave the body, and he growled as he made a choice that he knew he would regret, but it really wasn’t much of a choice anyway. He refused to allow Sam’s soul to be destroyed by Michael and Lucifer. He removed the barrier blocking Sam’s soul from retreat and instead weaved his grace through the hunter’s soul and anchored it to the body he created that was an exact replica of Sam’s in every way. Right down to the scars he held from a lifetime of hunting. It was hastily created, sure, but it was perfect. Gabriel was nothing if not a stickler for detail. 

As the archangel felt Sam’s soul start to relax into this new body, he let out a sigh of relief as he fell back onto the couch exhausted. It was quickly followed by a groan of frustration though. Why the hell did he do that? This was a nightmare. He let his grace take a quick inventory and saw that the bonding had taken and done most of the work. It wouldn’t be more than another day or two before Sam woke up and wouldn’t that be an explosion and a half when he found out the facts of their new circumstances. Gabriel would very much like to throw his own tantrum, but he was just too tired to bother. Trapping a fleeing soul then binding it with his own grace had taken a lot out of him. Had the archangel known that Sam’s soul hadn’t been heading for the cage, but rather the version of his original body that had been pulled from the cage at the last second before it was sealed forever, he would have acted differently, but he was oblivious to that fact and thus done what he thought was necessary to save Sam. 

Gabriel could at least take comfort in the fact that he wouldn’t have much longer to wait and sure enough, two days later he could feel the hunter starting to wake. He snapped his fingers and the room was returned to its comfortable earthy colors, his residual mess was cleaned up, leaving the couch and large television, now repaired, in place, and his appearance was just as immaculate as usual. All in all, there was no sign that Gabriel had spent the last month at Sam’s bedside going out of his mind. 

When Sam finally cracked his eyes open with a groan, Gabriel plastered a smug grin on his face and said, “Rise and shine, sleepyhead!”

The voice of the archangel that he had thought dead, jolted the hunter wide awake, with more than a little confusion. “But…you’re…and I’m…this is…what the hell is going on?” his confusion morphed into sheer frustration. 

“Cliff’s notes version. Your idiocy had you trying to jump into the pit with Lucifer and Michael, but I was resurrected just in time to save you, but there were some complications and I had to bind my grace to you so your soul wouldn’t pop back down to your new playmates,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly like every word he’d said hadn’t just completely knocked the hunter’s world on its axis. Truth was, Gabriel was struggling himself to keep his masks in place, but he was at least making an effort not to let Sam see how much this whole thing was affecting him. He wanted it to be glossed over. He didn’t want to think too deeply on it. He should have known that Sam wouldn’t let it go though. 

“Wait…what do you mean binding your grace to my soul?” Sam asked anxiously.

“Oh you know,” Gabriel said dismissively. “For better or worse, sickness and health, all of eternity, yadda yadda.” Gabriel was very glad that he was able to keep such iron control over his reactions because just saying it out loud was making it more real for him too, and he was on the verge of losing it. 

Sam, though, was past the verge and did actually lose it. “You did what?! Are you fucking kidding me?! We’re…what? Married? Forever?” 

Gabriel forced back his own reaction and drawled, “So sorry princess. Would you rather I had tossed you back in the pit and let Luci and Mikey have their way with that pretty little soul of yours?” Sam gaped and sputtered for a moment as he considered the options there, and that was the last straw for Gabriel. “Seriously?! You’re actually considering it? Fuck you Winchester,” he snarled as he disappeared. 

Gabriel reappeared in a dense forest, but was immediately struck by a clenching pain in his chest and he cursed, reappeared back in the room with Sam and brought the now gasping hunter with him to the forest before letting out a scream of frustration and punching a tree. He was too far gone to bother holding back and completely broke the trunk and the large pine started to topple over, thankfully away from them, because Gabriel wasn’t sure if he would bother saving Sam this time if it had fallen on him. 

Once he felt like he had enough control that he could look at the hunter without smiting him on the spot, he spun and snapped, “You think this is easy for me? You think I like this? You think I WANT to spend forever bound to a stubborn, reckless, suicidal, HUMAN?”

Sam’s eyes were as wide as saucers as the archangel lost his temper, well somewhat anyway. He doubted much would be left standing, him included, if Gabriel had completely lost it, but still. Sam gulped audibly, completely ignoring the fact that, despite being scared out of his wits, he found it almost arousing what with the casual strength Gabriel had displayed and the way he stood there now, fuming, fists clenched and the aura of power swirling around him. The way Gabriel had been acting, it had seemed like this was something he had just done on a whim, but he could see now that wasn’t the case. He wondered if the lazy unaffected attitude Gabriel had displayed was just him trying not to lose it like this. Then he found himself wondering if that attitude was always a mask for something deeper. Before he managed to collect his thoughts again, Gabriel let out a growl and turned away, placing his hand on another tree that was still intact as he tried to get himself together. Sam knew he needed to say something so he said the first thing that came to mind. “Why?” he asked softly. 

“I just told you why. To keep you out of the cage,” Gabriel ground out impatiently. 

“No I know that. And…um…thank you…but…why would you bother?” 

Gabriel turned to look at the hunter curiously, narrowing his eyes as if that would help him figure him out. “Because…” Gabriel started before he cut himself off as he realized that he didn’t have an answer. “It doesn’t matter why,” he said annoyed. 

“It does to me,” Sam said gently, trying not to ruffle his feathers again. 

Gabriel gave a heavy sigh. “I don’t know, ok?!” he snapped. 

“You don’t know?” Sam asked incredulously. To do something so permanent and drastic without even knowing why…it was incomprehensible to the hunter. 

“No, Sam. I don’t know. I don’t know why I pulled you away from the pit. I don’t know why I trapped myself in that damn room for a month trying to get you put back together again. I don’t know why I didn’t just let you go. I just don’t fucking know!”

“But…”

“Just drop it, Sam.”

“O-okay.” He looked around and asked, “Where are we?” Maybe if he could answer something unrelated to this whole situation he might calm down a little and then Sam could get more answers. 

“We’re…um…” Gabriel closed his eyes and focused a second before he opened them again and gave and amused, “Huh. Saskatchewan.”

“You didn’t know…” Sam started before he cut himself off. 

“I was a little more worried about getting out of that damn room than where I was going,” Gabriel said with a sheepish shrug.

Sam started to relax a little himself seeing that Gabriel wasn’t all prickly anymore. “You really stayed in one room for a whole month? Like not even leaving for a little while?”

“I couldn’t. Your soul was having trouble fusing with this body, and it could only take a split second for something to go sideways. I had to be close enough to keep a close eye on you, but you couldn’t be moved, so yeah. Didn’t even leave for a minute.”

“And you didn’t go insane?” Sam asked shocked. He couldn’t imagine the hyperactive archangel sitting still for so long. 

“It was a close thing there for a while. But then some would argue that I’m already insane so…” Gabriel joked, getting back in his stride and putting his masks back in place. 

Sam’s lips twitched in amusement. He certainly wasn’t going to argue that point. Now that the explosion was over, there was a lot more he needed to know, but he wasn’t sure where to start, but then something Gabriel said struck him. “Wait…you said this body…is this not…I mean…” He had no idea how to even ask the question. 

Gabriel knew what he was trying to ask though. “There was no way I was strong enough to pull Lucifer from your body and even if I were there was a good chance I would damage you irreparably in the process, so I just made a new body for you and pulled your soul out instead.”

“But…how did you…make a new body so fast?” Sam asked. It couldn’t possibly be that easy. 

“Well, that was probably where the difficulty came in with the soul. I didn’t have time to technically craft a body, but your original body was close enough I just kinda Xeroxed it. It won’t make any difference in the long run, given that your soul inhabits it now, but it would have been completely useless without it, unlike creating a body from scratch that can still think and function irrespective of the soul.”

“I…um…so this isn’t my body?” was all Sam could really get from that. 

Gabriel snorted in amusement. “Course it is. It’s exactly the same as your body, and houses your soul, your memories, your personality, all of it. It’s yours.”

“But…”

“Just not technically the one you were born with. That is stuck in the cage for good,” Gabriel gave in with a roll of his eyes.

“So I’m just a copy?” Sam was having difficulty wrapping his head around this.

“No,” Gabriel said tiredly. The human mind could be so limited sometimes. “YOU were just transferred to a new body. The body is a copy, but there is only one YOU and it now resides here.”

“Ok. I…think I get it. It’s kinda a lot you know?” Gabriel just rolled his eyes again and when Sam realized that was all the reaction he was going to get, he brought up the next big subject he needed answers on, given that he was going to try and skirt around the bond subject for a bit. “So…um…Dean…”


	3. Chapter 3

“You’re kidding right?” Gabriel asked incredulously. “What are you gonna do, just pop back up from the dead and say ‘oh by the way I’m bound forever to this monster we both hate, no don’t bother trying to kill him because I’ll die too’”

“We don’t hate you,” Sam said quickly.

“Oh so you bully all your friends into dying so you can get away?” he asked sarcastically. 

“We didn’t bully you into dying,” Sam protested. 

“I told you I was no match for Lucifer, but you two wouldn’t listen. You forced me into facing him anyway, and guess what? I died. Just like I knew I would,” Gabriel said bitterly. 

Sam choked on his words a bit at that. He, like Dean, had assumed that Gabriel just didn’t want to fight his brother; or that he was afraid of him, or both. He never considered the fact that he really just COULDN’T win. Then it struck him that Gabriel had obviously known it was a suicide mission and came anyway. He should have figured that out already by the fact that he had left them that dvd, but it hadn’t really dawned on him until now. “T-thank you,” Sam managed to say despite the fact that the words were wholly inadequate. “I…um…why did you?” he couldn’t help but ask, getting an annoyed glare in response. “You don’t know,” he guessed. It made sense that answer would be the same as why he saved Sam this time. It was going to drive the hunter insane though, not knowing, and he didn’t know how it wasn’t driving Gabriel insane too. He forced his mind back to the matter at hand which was, “We really don’t hate you, you know.” Gabriel scoffed. “Well, I don’t know that Dean likes you very much, but he doesn’t HATE you.”

Gabriel tilted his head and scrutinized the younger hunter. He’d said that they didn’t hate him, but that only Dean didn’t like him. “Are you saying that you actually like me?” he asked in disbelief. 

Sam sputtered a minute. “I…um…I guess…I mean, we’re basically married…like, forever…it’d be pretty miserable if we couldn’t at least be friends or something,” he stumbled over his words. 

Gabriel blinked at him a moment. “Or something?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“I meant…I didn’t mean…um…we were talking about Dean,” Sam wanted nothing more than to change the subject now. 

“So you think I really want to spend the next dad only knows how long following you morons around as you try to get yourselves killed all while fending off hateful looks and possibly murder attempts from your brother?” 

“Following us around?” Sam asked. 

“Yeah. You remember what happened when I left earlier. We’re stuck. Where you go, I go, and vice versa, and spending all my time with your brother is not my idea of fun.”

“You can’t just expect me to abandon my brother, Gabriel,” Sam said tiredly. He was willing to be reasonable about this, and compromise on what they do and where they go, but giving up Dean completely? “Does he even know that I’m not in hell?” 

Gabriel shrugged. “Probably not. Like I said, couldn’t exactly leave you to make notifications.” Gabriel knew he wasn’t going to win this argument this way, and he was going to win this argument. One way or another. “But are you even thinking about him? I mean, he’s probably already moved on with his life by now. It’s been a whole month. And how is he gonna feel when you pop back up with me in tow?” 

Sam chewed his lip as he considered what Gabriel was saying. He knew that he had told Dean to go to Lisa. He knew that she would make him happy. That she was what he wanted. Sam also knew that he was poison. If he walked back into Dean’s life, it would all fall apart. They would end up back on the road, hunting monsters in no time. Sam did still have demon blood in him. He was still the devil’s vessel. There would always be something after him and Dean wouldn’t risk letting his new family get caught in the crossfire so he would leave with Sam. Besides, Gabriel had a point. Dean wouldn’t understand that he had no choice with Gabriel, and even if he did, he would blame Gabriel for it. Sam would have to play peacemaker and Dean would feel betrayed. Sam sighed. Maybe Gabriel was right. Maybe it was better if Sam stay away. If Dean was happy. “How about this? We go look in on him. He doesn’t have to know we’re there. If he’s not a wreck over all this then we’ll leave him be and let him be happy. Deal?” 

Gabriel thought about that for a second. If need be, he could throw up some illusions to make things look the way he wanted them to. “Deal. But I don’t know where he is. He’s still warded remember.”

“Try 945 Krimson Lane in Cicero Indiana,” Sam suggested. That’s where he would be if he had gone to Lisa like Sam asked. 

Gabriel shrugged and grabbed Sam’s hand, transporting them to the street outside the house that Sam had specified. Gabriel was internally relieved. It didn’t seem like he would have to fudge anything after all. Not that he was drastically opposed to it. Not if it allowed him to do what he wanted rather than playing nursemaid to a couple hunters. He would rather not have to lie so radically to Sam though. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to as they watched through the window as Dean sat down at the dinner table, ruffling a kid’s hair on the way and laughing as he dropped a kiss on the woman seated next to him. 

Sam had a smile on his face, but Gabriel could see the heartbreak beneath it and the lone tear falling down Sam’s cheek. The archangel pushed away the drowning feeling that welled up in him. This is what he wanted, after all. The kid would get over it. “Let’s go,” Sam said choking a little on the words, and unconsciously gripping the archangel’s hand tighter. 

This time when they left, they reappeared on a glorious golden beach with a large glass house in the distance. Sam didn’t even bother trying to appreciate the view. He just crumbled, sitting in the sand and pulled his knees to his chest, resting his head on them and let himself cry. He knew that he was doing this for a good reason. It was better this way, but oh how it hurt to let go. 

It took Gabriel a moment to realize that Sam wasn’t standing next to him anymore, so taken with the view as he always was when he came here, which was often. When he looked down, he could practically see the despair pouring off the hunter with the shaking of his shoulders, the haunch of his back, and the tightness of his arms around his knees and the archangel began to feel his own throat start to close and his own eyes fill with moisture. He reached over and placed a comforting hand on Sam’s shoulder, but the hunter just shrugged it away, which just made Gabriel feel even worse. When Gabriel caught himself considering going back and fixing things between the brothers, he shook it off. That was crazy. This was what he wanted…wasn’t it? Not to have to work other people into his life. Not to be subject to anyone else’s whims and wants. It would be hard enough adjusting to Sam and he was fairly reasonable. Dean would be unbearable. Yeah. He was doing the right thing. 

With that thought cemented in his mind, he just walked a little way down the beach, snapped up a hammock and a cocktail and enjoyed being outside, leaving Sam alone to wallow in misery. He tried his best not to think about Sam or look over at him, because that just brought those uncomfortable feelings to the surface again and made the guilt and doubt grow and he didn’t need that.


	4. Chapter 4

After a while, when Gabriel couldn’t keep from looking at Sam any longer, he glanced over to see that Sam had somehow landed on his side and fallen asleep in the sand. For a moment, he considered leaving him there. It was nice out and he could keep any pests from bothering him and Gabriel didn’t particularly want to go back inside yet. Not after being trapped inside for a whole month, but then he realized that even he couldn’t stop the tide from coming in. Granted he could keep it off of Sam, but the hunter might panic if he woke up surrounded by water, so Gabriel sighed and resigned himself to spending the remainder of the night at the house. At least there was a balcony off the bedroom so he wouldn’t feel so confined. 

He snapped his fingers, simultaneously transferring both himself and Sam to the bedroom and vanishing any sand clinging to either of them. Sam landed, undisturbed on the plush bed and Gabriel made his way out to the balcony. Unlike last time, he knew that excessive noise would bother the hunter so he snapped up a book. His mind wandered often over the course of the evening to the sleeping hunter as he pondered how he could get him into his bed in a more figurative sense. He had been dry for over a month now, and that wasn’t counting the time he was dead. He wasn’t used to going so long without, and since it was now Sam or no one…well it would have to be Sam. He tried not to be bitter about it, but it wasn’t working very well. 

Given the way the hunter had clammed up when Gabriel had only barely suggested more than friendship, he guessed just making a move was off the table. He’d have to work up to it, and the beach was the perfect place to do so. Gratuitous nudity was never out of place at a beach. He knew that his vessel was quite good-looking. He had made it that way himself of course, but that was a long time ago. Before ripped muscles and six pack abs were all the rage, when he was considered tall even. He looked down at his body, specifically the slight pudge around his middle and couldn’t help the brief insecurity that crept up on him, before he swatted it away. He was being ridiculous. His body was plenty hot enough to get Sam interested. Especially when he had no other options available. He may not be hard-bodied, but he was still hot. 

It wasn’t until nearly morning before another thought struck Gabriel. It hadn’t occurred to him before because he had never really given gender much thought, particularly not in sexual partners, but what if it did matter to Sam? There were always illusions and such that he could use, but would that be enough? He couldn’t exactly go around making a new vessel if Sam wouldn’t sleep with a man. That would send up too much of a beacon to heaven. Not to mention, he liked this vessel. A lot. He gave a heavy sigh. He would just have to cross that bridge if he came to it. 

He decided a little test was in order and headed in the house to take a shower. It wasn’t something he did often, not actually needing to shower to stay clean, but every now and then he enjoyed the feel of the hot water rolling over him. He waited until he heard Sam stirring before he turned off the water and stepped out, wrapping a thin towel around his waist that only just covered the important bits. No need to throw too much at the guy first thing in the morning. He dried enough that he wasn’t soaked, but there were still some beads of water trailing down his chest and shoulders and his hair was still more than a little damp, before walking into the room and to the dresser next to the bed where Sam was sitting up. He gave the hunter a cheerful “Good Morning,” as he rummaged in the drawer with one hand, the other holding up the towel, but acting as though walking around the room nearly naked was no big deal, and really it wasn’t, besides wanting to get Sam’s reaction. Gabriel certainly wasn’t shy about such things. At least, he hadn’t been until that brief bout of insecurity this morning when he was comparing his body to Sam’s, but now he found himself second-guessing things and he hated it. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t do self-conscious. 

He managed to keep all sign of his inner turmoil from showing outwardly as he noticed, Sam’s eyes rake over him before a blush stained the hunter’s cheeks and he looked down, only to glance back up through his lashes. Gabriel’s inner turmoil turned to triumph. So Sam was interested, at least somewhat. That or he was just exceptionally horny right now, but Gabriel didn’t care. He’d take what he could get. He figured it would take some time to wear down the hunter’s embarrassment to actually get somewhere, but hopefully it wouldn’t take too long. 

Sam got up and headed for the bathroom, heat still rising in his cheeks, and Gabriel allowed himself to smirk and kept an ear tuned so he could time this right. He noticed that Sam hadn’t taken any clothes with him, despite his bag being next to the bed, so assumed he wasn’t going to take a shower so it shouldn’t be suspicious at all. When he heard Sam’s footsteps stop in front of the door, he dropped the towel and bent, back to the door, to put on the shorts he had pulled from the drawer, giving Sam a perfect view of his ass as he bent over. If he hadn’t been listening for it, he would never have heard the slight hitch of breath, even with his enhanced hearing and made sure to wipe the smirk off his face as he stood back up and turned around. 

When Sam opened the door and saw Gabriel bent down like that, a thousand ideas floated through his head and he had managed to bury them all by the time Gabriel turned around and Sam somehow managed to start moving again, walking to his bag. “I’m…um…just gonna grab some clothes and…um…go take a shower,” he stammered out, not being very good at hiding how flustered he was. 

Gabriel just acted like it didn’t faze him a bit and waved him off. “Sure thing. I’ll be on the balcony when you’re done and then we can go down and have breakfast.”

Sam just grabbed the first clothes he saw and made to retreat back to the bathroom before he made even more of a fool of himself and hopefully before Gabriel saw his erection straining against his jeans. He normally hated sleeping in jeans, but this time he was glad for it. His little problem would be far more obvious in sweatpants. He quickly set the temperature of the water and stepped into the already damp tub, but he had more pressing matters to contend with than washing first. He imagined Gabriel standing here, rubbing soap all over his body as his hand moved fast over his dick. He couldn’t get the image of Gabriel’s perfect round ass out of his head and wondered if it was as firm as it looked. It seemed like no time at all before he was coming over his hand, biting his lip to keep from making a sound. 

It wasn’t until he was rinsing the cum from his hands and the shower walls that he realized what he had just done. He had just jacked off while thinking about another man. Well an angel in a male vessel, but same difference. God if Dean ever found out… he cut off that thought abruptly. Dean wouldn’t find out. He wasn’t a part of his life anymore. With that sobering thought he finished his shower quickly, ignoring the tears that mixed with the water. As he got dressed, he pushed it out of his mind. He and Gabriel needed to find a way to co-exist. He needed to focus on what was not what used to be. He would pick himself up and get over this. It wasn’t like Dean was dead. Dean was happy. Alive and happy. That was what mattered. 

He stepped out of the bathroom with his game face on, and glanced over to the balcony to see Gabriel sitting there, feet propped up on the railing. Apparently the archangel heard him come out of the bathroom because a moment later he tilted his head back and looked, upside down, at Sam before grinning and hopping out of the chair. “All done? Ready for breakfast? Good,” he chirped not waiting for an answer before he strolled out of the room, expecting Sam to follow him. Technically Sam hadn’t eaten anything in a month, and while Gabriel’s grace had been able to sustain him, he was sure the hunter was starving, even without hearing his stomach growl all night.


	5. Chapter 5

As Gabriel strolled past him and out the door, Sam couldn’t help but notice that the archangel hadn’t put a shirt on, nor could he fail to see the large star shaped scar in the center of Gabriel’s chest, white offset by the golden tan that covered Gabriel’s body. When they got downstairs to the elegant marble kitchen, Gabriel turned to him. “What are you hungry for?” he asked casually, knowing full well the other meaning Sam could take from that but acting for all the world like it was just an innocent question. 

Sam was too distracted to care though as he reached out a hand to touch the scar. “Is that where…”

Gabriel couldn’t help but flinch away from both the hunter’s hand and his questions. Sam snatched his hand back like it was burned. It figured that the first time Sam touches him it had to be there, evoking that particular memory with his question. Like he didn’t already know. “Yes, that’s where my own brother ripped me open with my own blade and murdered me,” he said bitingly as he spun away, grabbing the counter for support against the onslaught of memories. 

“I…” Sam gulped overcome with guilt. “I’m sorry.” He hoped Gabriel knew that he meant for both putting him in that situation in the first place and for bringing it up now. 

“It’s fine. Just eat,” Gabriel said, voice tight, as he snapped his fingers and a full continental breakfast appeared on the counter. Gabriel stiffly grabbed a few doughnuts and went to sit at the table and eat. By the time Sam had filled a plate and sat down across from him, his masks were back in place. Sam just had a knack for getting under his skin. 

Sam could tell that the normal, i.e. fake, Gabriel was back as he was sitting down. He mostly ignored the archangel as he ate, lost in thought. He thought about the first time he’d seen Gabriel without his masks, back when they had him trapped in holy fire, then in the woods when Gabriel had lost it, and now this. It was painfully obvious that Gabriel was far more vulnerable than he wanted anyone to believe. Maybe that’s why he kept the masks in place. Sam, more than most, knew what a liability vulnerability could be and he had certainly given the archangel no reason to trust him enough to let him in. Hell, he didn’t think Gabriel was even convinced that Sam didn’t hate him, much less anything more. 

Sam’s problem was that with every peek behind those masks, he wanted to know more. To see more. To know the real Gabriel. It was fascinating to him to see someone who seemed so flighty and materialistic in a deeper way. If only he could find a way to get to it without hurting Gabriel to pull it forth. Now that he was thinking about it, he’d never even seen a genuine smile from the archangel. He could tell every smile he’d seen since the moment they met was either forced or held some kind of malicious or smug undertone. He didn’t know why he suddenly wanted to see a real smile from the archangel. He supposed that part of it was the challenge. 

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he felt guilty. It was his fault Lucifer was released in the first place. It was his fault that Gabriel had died. It had been his idea that led to that graveyard where Gabriel had saved him again. It was his fault that Gabriel was now stuck with him forever. He needed to know that it wouldn’t be all bad for him. That he could bring out some measure of joy in the archangel’s life to make up for all this. Gabriel had sacrificed so much for him. He needed to know that he could give something back, no matter how small. If only he knew what Gabriel wanted. He realized that he didn’t know Gabriel at all. All he had were assumptions based on a carefully cultivated façade. He thought what Gabriel wanted him to think. There was more there, and he knew that he was just scratching the surface. 

It was hard though, because while there was the guilt and the desire to make up for it, there was also anger. Despite the fact that the alternative was worse, he was still trapped just as much as Gabriel was. Gabriel had made such a huge decision for the both of them. He knew it was irrational. It wasn’t like he was even able to be consulted, but that feeling was still there, bubbling just below the surface. Add to that the fact that he felt deceived by everything that Gabriel pretended to be and the fact that it felt like Gabriel had taken him away from his brother and he was just a jumble of confused emotions. He knew logically that he had taken himself away from Dean. First with his decision to say yes to Lucifer and jump in the pit and then by leaving him to his happy life, but it didn’t change the fact that it didn’t feel that way. 

“If you want me to turn you into a chicken so you can finish laying that egg, just say the word,” Gabriel interrupted his introspection. Sam started as if he had forgotten that the archangel was even there and looked at him in confusion. “That look on your face. You look like you’re trying to lay an egg,” Gabriel clarified in amusement. 

“Just thinking,” Sam said shortly. 

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Gabriel quipped. 

Sam didn’t even think about what he did next. It was second nature when someone said something like that to throw something at them. It just so happened that his bagel was the closest thing at hand. When it hit Gabriel in the chest, and the cream cheese it was slathered in stuck for a second before sliding down, Sam’s eyes got wide as he realized what he’d done. They got even wider when Gabriel raised an eyebrow and his lips twitched. He could see what was coming, not literally of course since the bowl of oatmeal attacked him from behind with just a gesture from the amused archangel. 

Sam, oatmeal dripping from his hair, took one look at Gabriel’s challenging grin, knowing that he was giving him an out, a chance to surrender before things got out of hand, but Sam couldn’t. Surrender wasn’t in his nature. At least not this easily. He knew that he would never win, not in a food fight against Gabriel of all beings, but he’d be damned if he went down without a fight. He knew that Gabriel could tell the moment he had decided to fight, and Sam dove off the chair to grab the first pie from the end of the counter and chuck it at Gabriel. 

Gabriel was a good sport and didn’t fly away from the chucked pie. Sam had good aim too. It got him right in the face, but Sam felt something hit his chest and then felt something runny seeping through his shirt. By the time he registered the fact that they were raw eggs, he was under full assault. He was ducking behind the counter in an attempt to hide from the onslaught of food. Gabriel seemed content to snap up his weapons, leaving the spread on the counter for Sam to fight with. Sam grabbed the maple syrup and squeezed as hard as he could, the sticky substance just barely making it to the archangel who was still sitting at the table, secure in his victory, or just not caring how messy he got. Sam wasn’t sure which. 

When the syrup was drained, he followed it up with a few chucked handfuls of cereal, still ducking and weaving as he grabbed for the bottle of chocolate sauce as his next weapon. When he noticed that Sam was running out of ammunition, Gabriel decided to go for the coup de gras and flew behind Sam and poured a giant milkshake down the back of his shirt, making the hunter yelp at both the surprise and the temperature and then doubled over laughing as Sam finally stopped fighting. “You look ridiculous,” he gasped out between guffaws. 

“You’re one to talk,” Sam joined him in laughter. “Great. Now I need another shower,” he said more amused than annoyed. 

“Why shower when there’s a huge ocean out there to wash off in,” Gabriel asked, fully intending to head there. 

“Well for one, I don’t exactly have swimming clothes,” Sam said gesturing to his ruined jeans and t-shirt. 

“Course you do. You didn’t even check your side of the dresser,” Gabriel said as though it should be obvious. 

That sobered Sam up slightly. “My side of the…but…”

Gabriel loved catching the hunter off guard and confusing him and planned to do so as much as he could manage. “What? You thought I’d make you live out of that ridiculous duffle bag?” 

“Ooookay,” Sam said carefully. “So…um…which is my side?” 

“The side that I wasn’t digging in,” Gabriel said looking pointedly at the hunter. 

Sam saw the trap before he stepped into it. If he said that he didn’t know, then Gabriel would say something about him being distracted by the view and if he did then Gabriel would say something about Sam watching him. Sam decided to take the path of least resistance and just said, “I’ll figure it out,” as he headed for the stairs. “But I’m still taking a shower this time, because changing clothes is just ridiculous,” he added. 

“This time? Planning on starting more food fights are we Samsquatch?” Gabriel said cheerfully. 

“I…that…you…that’s not what I meant!” Sam protested. 

Gabriel laughed again and dashed past the hunter on the stairs. “Hurry up and take your shower hot shot so we can hit the beach and I can clean up.” Technically, Gabriel could have just snapped them both clean, but his goal was to drive Sam crazy in more ways than one, and this would work well all around.


	6. Chapter 6

Sam emerged from the bathroom mostly clean and donned in a large pair of swim trunks and a t-shirt. Gabriel couldn’t help but snort at the hunter’s idea of proper swimming attire. Rather than walk down to the beach he just grabbed Sam’s hand and flew them down there. By the time Sam had adjusted to the change in location, Gabriel already had his shorts halfway off. “What…um…what are you doing?” he asked as he stepped away. 

“Gonna go swimming and clean up of course,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly. 

“But…um…You’re…” Sam gestured at the archangel’s now naked body while trying not to look, lest his morning problem return. 

“I never understood people who swim with clothes on. Makes no sense,” Gabriel said easily as he headed for the water. “You coming?” he asked with a raised eyebrow as he turned back to look at Sam who shook his head. Gabriel shrugged. “Don’t go too far,” he reminded the hunter. He left a couple lawn chairs and hammocks on the beach so Sam wouldn’t be lacking places to sit if he didn’t want to sit in the sand. 

Gabriel went out far enough that he could submerge when the waves were coming in, but when they were receding the water was around his knees. It was the perfect depth to drive Sam nuts. He knew that looking back at Sam for his reaction would ruin the effect, so he didn’t let himself. He would duck into the waves and come back up running his hands over his body, ostensibly to remove the food residue, though he had cleaned himself completely in the first wave, Sam didn’t need to know that. 

Sam tried not to watch. He really did. He couldn’t help himself though. He had glanced up when Gabriel was coming up from the first wave and watching his hair fall back as his back arched while he pulled out of the water had him hooked, and the way the archangel’s hands were caressing his body as the water receded had his mouth going dry. Then the water kept receding and Sam could see it all. Even from this distance, even in profile, he could tell that Gabriel was impressively hung, and the curve of his ass was like something out of a dream. But then another wave broke over him and he was submerged again, and the whole thing repeated itself. 

Sam was having trouble keeping his breathing steady and he could feel how hard he was. His hand came up to cover it in case Gabriel happened to look back and he felt the damp spot that told him that he was already leaking. As he watched Gabriel’s hand trail down his stomach and even lower, he wondered if he would end up coming just from this and he let out a whimper as he put a little more pressure on his aching erection, trying to get some sense of relief. There was no way he would be able to walk anywhere like this, but he couldn’t go on like this either. 

He bit his lip in thought for a moment before grabbing a beach towel and throwing it over his lap and hoping against hope that Gabriel didn’t come back or even look back before he was done. Once he was as hidden as he was going to be by the placement of the towel, he slid his hand inside his shorts unable to stop the quiet moan as he wrapped his hand around his length and started pumping, not taking his eyes off Gabriel, not that he even had that ability at the moment. He worked to finish as fast as he could, not wanting to take any more chance than he already was of getting caught. He needn’t have worried though. It only took a few strokes before he was spilling over his hand with a grunt, and just in time too, because no sooner than the streams of cum had stopped, Gabriel was turning to head back to shore. Sam wiped himself off quickly with the towel and tossed it to the side, throwing Gabriel the other one as he walked up, making a mental note to ‘accidentally’ drop it in the water before Gabriel saw it. 

Sam wasn’t nearly as slick as he thought he was though. For one thing he missed a spot of cum on his chest, and for another he had assumed the roaring waves would keep Gabriel from hearing the soft noises he was making, but an archangel’s hearing is better than that. He could hear on many levels and was perfectly aware of what Sam was doing, and timed his walk back up purposefully. He wanted to push Sam to the edge, and what better way than keeping him on his toes. He didn’t let on that he knew though and just ran the towel Sam tossed him through his hair a few times before sitting on the other lounge chair and leaning it all the way back. “You’re not gonna…um…get dressed?” Sam asked cursing himself for getting tongue tied all the time. What the hell was Gabriel doing to him?

“Nah. Tan lines are a bitch,” Gabriel said lazily, laying back and closing his eyes. Sam did his best to ignore the fact that Gabriel was laying not five feet away from him, buck naked as he tried to figure out what was going on with him. He’d never been attracted to men before, but Gabriel was different. He had this ethereal quality about him. He was like a drug that Sam couldn’t get enough of. Maybe it was the fact that he was so free with nudity, or the fact that Sam knew that they were essentially married that made him see the archangel differently, but for the first time ever, Sam found himself contemplating sex with a man, and how would that even work anyway? Not that Gabriel would be interested. The archangel’s interest in women was legendary. Literally, if he considered his Loki persona

Gabriel could feel Sam’s eyes glancing over to him every few minutes, but he pretended not to. He kept his eyes closed and just soaked up the sun. The attention was getting to him though, so he flipped over a little earlier than he normally would have to hide his burgeoning erection. It didn’t stop Sam from watching him, but it did stop him from seeing the effect he was having on the archangel. Gabriel tried to tamp down his impatience. It had only been a day after all, but Sam obviously wanted him. What was the hunter’s problem? Gabriel had to remind himself that humans had funny notions about sex and what was proper. Especially tough guys like Winchesters. He could just imagine the ideas those two had grown up with. He would probably have to wait for the hunter to finish some kind of big gay freak out before he actually acted on anything. In the meantime, Gabriel would keep pushing without seeming like he was pushing. He had no doubt that was driving Sam crazier than anything else. The fact that he didn’t seem to be doing it on purpose, but if there was one thing Gabriel was good at it was manipulation. He would have Sam in his bed. Eventually. 

After a while, Sam couldn’t take it anymore. Having Gabriel lying there so close yet so far. It was like staring a feast while you were starving but knowing it was poisoned. “I’m gonna go swim for a bit,” Sam said as he got up. 

“Don’t go too far,” Gabriel warned. It was easy to lose track of such things with the whole open beach and get too far away and then Gabriel would have to go get him. Gabriel could fight through the pain of the straining bond to some degree, but he doubted Sam would be able to take a step if it hit him and that’s if he was able to focus enough to know which way to go. No, if Sam got lost it would be up to Gabriel to go fetch and he was comfortable, so hopefully the hunter would pay attention. 

Of course he couldn’t be that lucky though. He heard Sam’s call for help just before he felt the pain shoot through the bond that he’d gotten too far away. Thankfully he didn’t need to see Sam to know where he was because the hunter was nowhere to be seen. Gabriel appeared next to him under the water just as Sam lost consciousness and grabbed him so they would reappear back on the beach. Gabriel wasn’t worried. He could tell that Sam wasn’t particularly close to death and it was nothing he couldn’t fix if need be, so he was good doing it the human way, at least for now. He straddled the hunter’s lap and began chest compressions before leaning down and giving him mouth to mouth. It was just as he was fitting his lips over Sam’s the second time when the hunter jerked awake and started coughing. 

Once the coughing fit was over, Gabriel, not having moved from on top of the hunter and still leaning over asked cheekily, “Why’d you go swimming if you can’t swim?”

Sam was having trouble getting his brain to work with Gabriel on top of him like that and so wonderfully naked to boot. When he could feel parts of his anatomy responding, he started to panic and shoved Gabriel off him with a heated, “Get off!” Gabriel landed in the sand next to the hunter and rolled his eyes. If he had been hoping to hide his reaction, he hadn’t been fast enough. Luckily for Gabriel, Sam wouldn’t even look in his direction and gave him time to get his own reaction under control. “And I can swim just fine,” he added petulantly. “Even the crappy motels tended to have swimming pools.”

Gabriel laughed. “You mean you’ve only ever swam in pools?” 

“And a lake once,” Sam said remembering when they’d had to dive in to rescue the little boy a few years ago. 

“And you thought that automatically translated to being able to swim in the ocean?” Gabriel asked amused. 

“Water is water,” Sam grumbled, unwilling to admit that maybe Gabriel had a point. 

“Obviously not as you just learned the hard way. Ocean currents can be strong and unpredictable. If you don’t keep your footing and anticipate then you can easily get swept away.”

“Well how the hell was I supposed to know that. You made it look so easy…” Sam trailed off and his eyes went wide as he realized what he just admitted. 

Gabriel couldn’t just let that one go. “So you were watching huh?” he asked smugly with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. 

“No!” Sam protested. “I…just…um…I just glanced up a few times to see what was taking you so long,” he tried unsuccessfully to cover up for his slip. 

Even if Gabriel hadn’t already known, he wouldn’t have been convinced at all by Sam’s protests. The steady blush in his cheeks and shifty eyes left no room for interpretation. “Whatever you say, hot stuff,” Gabriel said with a wink and a chuckle as he sauntered back towards the water to rinse the sand off, quickly this time sensing that Sam was nearing his limits and not able to linger to long with something that washes off so easily, and then he went back to his chair to continue lounging.


	7. Chapter 7

Sam couldn’t even tell Gabriel off for making fun of him without implying that there was something to make fun of him for and rather than be close to the annoying archangel again he walked over to the hammocks, guessing they were placed within the cone of space they had to share and got some distance. He really needed to get his head on straight. So far since he’d woken up less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d seen an archangel lose his temper, found out that he was bonded for eternity with said archangel, lost his brother, cried himself to sleep on a beach, given an archangel painful flashbacks, been in a food fight, nearly drowned, and realized that he may not be as straight as he thought. That was a lot for less than a day and he was feeling more than a little overwhelmed. 

Sam started when a plate with two sandwiches appeared on his stomach and looked over to see a glass of milk sitting in the sand next to him. He glanced up at Gabriel, only to see that he wasn’t even looking at him, despite obviously having done this. Sam just shrugged. Apparently it was lunchtime, and apparently Gabriel didn’t want to go inside. That thought reminded Sam that he had been trapped in one small room for over a month until yesterday, and he couldn’t really blame Gabriel for wanting to spend time in such open spaces. Then it struck Sam, that not only had he been trapped in that small room, but he had been there alone, and he wasn’t counting himself since he’d been comatose at the time. He would think that Gabriel would want to be surrounded by people, or at least want some company from the one person he did have. Or did he just not want to admit that he didn’t want to be alone. 

Sam couldn’t deal with being around Gabriel right now. He had too much going on in his own head, but he promised himself that tomorrow he would try and be more sociable. At the very least he needed more information on this whole bond thing. He’d picked up a little bit in that they had to stay near each other, but he had a feeling there was a whole lot more that he should probably know. Other things kept taking precedence though, and if he was honest with himself, he would admit that he was a little afraid to bring it up. It was obviously a sore subject with Gabriel, given the way he had blown up last time they talked about it and admitted that he hated it. He seemed to be taking it in stride, keeping close to Sam and reminding him about it, but Sam was starting to learn that what Gabriel showed and what he felt were completely different things. 

As Gabriel lay there in the sun, he found his mood souring again. Now that he wasn’t playing with Sam anymore it left room for everything else to intrude. He didn’t think he would ever get over the fact that he was now bound for all eternity to Sam fucking Winchester, and he had no one to blame but himself. Well, if he wanted to be difficult he could blame Sam; for releasing Lucifer, for coming up with the stupid idea to jump in the cage with him; and he probably would blame Sam, at least out loud when it suited his purposes. He would keep to himself the fact that he really was the only one to blame. He could have walked away. He didn’t have to save Sam from falling in the pit. He didn’t have to anchor his soul with his own grace. He could have walked away at any point, but he didn’t. He wondered if there would ever be a day that he didn’t regret that. 

It was amazing how fast everything could snowball out of control. What had started as checking up on them, turned into pulling Sam out of the way which was easy enough. But then he would have hated to have wasted the effort so he stayed to make sure the soul fused correctly. By the time the fateful decision came necessary, he had already put so much time and effort into it, that giving up hadn’t seemed like an option. He wondered if he would have gone so far if Sam’s soul had been rejected that first day, or that first week. He didn’t think so, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where that point of no return had been. It didn’t exactly matter anymore though. It was done and it couldn’t be undone and he would just have to learn to live with it, as much as he hated it. 

One thing about being an archangel was that no matter how lost he was in his thoughts, he remained aware of the passage of time and his surroundings. While it could definitely be a bad thing, like when stuck in a small windowless room for a month, it also meant that time couldn’t get away from him. He never understood how human’s coped with that. It was like the ultimate loss of control. Losing time was like losing life. Needless to say, he knew when it was approaching dinnertime and snapped his fingers, giving Sam some burgers and chips and snapping up a large ice cream sundae for himself, not even looking back at the hunter. If Sam wanted to be left alone, then he would leave him alone. 

Even Gabriel couldn’t keep his bad mood as he watched the sun set over the water. It was one of the most glorious things in creation after all. The wash of color and light even as it slowly diminished. For a long time, he had equated the sun with Lucifer; as the light-bringer, the sun had been his; and it had been painful to watch, but such associations had long since faded and he could now enjoy it for its beauty without the pain of loss clouding it. When he heard snoring coming from the hammock he considered taking them inside, but changed his mind. The hammock was far enough back that the rising tide wouldn’t be a danger, though he couldn’t promise that Sam wouldn’t get a little splash from the waves, but oh well. If he wanted to sleep inside, then he would have to go inside to sleep. Gabriel wasn’t his nursemaid. 

When Sam creaked his eyes open the next morning as the sun started coming up, his first thought was that he had slept in the hammock all night, and as comfortable as it was, being in it most of the day and then all night had him more than a little stiff. His second thought was being stiff in another way because he caught sight of Gabriel down by the water doing what looked like tai-chi, still naked. His third thought was brought on by his growing problem as he realized that in the wake of nearly drowning followed by waking up with a naked archangel on top of him, he had completely forgotten to dispose of his towel that had been so useful. He glanced around but didn’t see it anywhere and his stomach dropped. What if Gabriel saw it and realized what he had done with him right there? He would never live it down. It was almost enough to kill his erection. Probably would have if his eyes weren’t glued back on the gorgeous body, stretching and contorting with the rising sun as a backdrop. 

He wished he could just disappear, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen and there was no way he was going to risk taking care of his issue in front of Gabriel again, so he decided to just face the music. He cleared his throat loudly, and Gabriel stopped mid-move and turned to look at him. “Morning sunshine,” he said cheerfully, hiding his smug grin. He knew the moment Sam woke up and it was quite a while before he made himself known, so he had obviously been distracted by something and judging by the way he was sitting up and leaning forward, Gabriel could make a good guess. The tai-chi was a brilliant idea, not that it was all for Sam’s benefit. Gabriel did enjoy it. It was relaxing. The timing though…that was all for Sam. 

“You think maybe we could go back to the house for a bit? I mean, I know you probably don’t want to spend much time inside right now and that’s fine, but I kinda need a shower and was hoping to look around a little if that’s okay?” Sam said nervously. 

Gabriel almost winced when he realized how easily Sam had seen through him with regards to his discomfort being inside. It was annoying how the little human could see past his masks, some of them at least. The least important ones thankfully, but he definitely didn’t want him getting any better at it. There was only one thing for it. He would have to make the hunter think he was wrong by spending some time inside. He could at least prolong it by walking there so he just shrugged and said, “Sure,” as he started walking in that direction. 

“So…um…what happened to my towel?” Sam asked in what he hoped was a casual voice. “I’m a little sandy,” he tried to explain his sudden interest as he passed Gabriel and walked determinedly in front of him, keeping his back to the archangel. 

“Yeah, I forgot to pick it up before the tide came in,” Gabriel said with a shrug. He knew what Sam was worried about, and saw no reason to keep him on edge. He wanted to drive Sam crazy, but not quite that way. Let him think he got away with it. 

“Oh. Okay. Oh well. I’m sure the shower will get the sand off,” Sam said relieved.


	8. Chapter 8

When Sam came out of the shower, he was glad he had taken care of his not so little problem while he was in there because if he hadn’t it would have come back with a vengeance at the sight that met him. Gabriel was sprawled casually on the bed, hands behind his head and one knee bent and his dick was at half-mast. “Um…what are you…um…doing?” Sam stammered forcing himself to look away. 

“Hmm?” Gabriel asked absently. “Just thinking,” he said with a shrug as he started to get out of bed. 

“Bout what?” Sam asked trying to be casual about it. 

“Nothing important,” Gabriel brushed him off. It wasn’t like he was going to tell Sam that he was imagining the hunter in the shower after all. Even his iron control over his bodily functions couldn’t prevent some sort of reaction with that imagery in his mind. 

“You’re not gonna…you know…get dressed or anything?” Sam asked. 

“Don’t usually bother here. I can throw some shorts on if it makes you uncomfortable though,” Gabriel said easily. 

Once again, Sam had no way out. If he said it made him uncomfortable there would be the question of why, and if he said he was fine with it, it would be a little too telling, so once again he took the middle ground. “Whatever you want. I don’t care,” he said with a shrug. Sam saw the opportunity to bring up a subject that he had thought about last night. “So you remember the time we met?” 

“Of course. You tried to kill me remember? Not something that I’d forget so quickly,” Gabriel drawled as he led the hunter down to the kitchen for breakfast. 

“Well you were killing people!” Sam said defensively. This was not the way he wanted this conversation to go. 

Gabriel knew that they were going to have to hash this out eventually if he ever had any hope of getting back to his life, but he could tell that the hunter had something else on his mind so it could wait. “Whatever,” he said dismissively. “What about the time we met?” he tried to get the conversation back on track. 

“Well you remember those girls you snapped up for Dean…” Sam let the sentence hang hoping the archangel would get the hint. 

Gabriel sighed heavily. If only. “Sorry kiddo. No can do. Bound remember?” he said pointedly.

Sam got a sinking feeling. “You mean…” he couldn’t even say it. 

“Yep. Forced fidelity and all that jazz. Fun huh?” Gabriel said bitterly. 

“So, it’s you or no one? Ever?” Sam said as his mouth went dry at the thought. 

“Bingo,” Gabriel said. 

Sam just gulped audibly. This was a nightmare. Now he could understand why Gabriel was so upset. He just dropped to the table and mostly picked at his breakfast, though he did manage to eat a little of the spread Gabriel had snapped up. It was about twenty minutes later before Sam got up the nerve to ask the question he knew he had to ask. “Is that…something you’d…um…be okay with?” Sam asked mouth going dry with anxiety. 

“What? Never sleeping with anyone but you?” Gabriel played dumb. 

“No. I mean…um…me…like…sleeping with me…you know…at all.”

Gabriel snorted. “Like I’d turn down my only option,” he said rolling his eyes. No need to let Sam see how eager he was. Let the kid think he was doing him a favor. “Why? You want me?” Gabriel asked with a smirk. 

“I…um…just…like…like you said…only option,” Sam said heart beating a mile a minute. Was this seriously going to happen? Just the idea had his cock taking interest again. 

Gabriel’s lips twitched in amusement at the hunter’s obvious discomfort. “So…” he drawled. “We doing this now or later?” 

“I’ve…um…I’ve never…really…been with a…a guy before,” Sam said nervously wondering if the color would ever end up leaving his cheeks. 

“That wasn’t an answer, Sam-a-lam,” Gabriel said with a waggle of his eyebrows as he got up from the table, giving Sam a clear view of his now hard cock. Sam sucked in a sharp breath and couldn’t take his eyes off the archangel’s impressive length. He’d thought he was well endowed before, but seeing him up-close and hard, was a whole different story. “Guess that answers that question,” he said smugly as he pulled Sam to his feet and kissed him roughly, swallowing Sam’s gasp and taking the opportunity to press his tongue into the hunter’s mouth as he plastered his body against Sam’s. 

Before Sam could blink they were back in the bedroom, and Sam was just as naked as Gabriel was. His first instinct was to cover himself, but when Gabriel grabbed his ass and he felt their hard cocks slide against each other, nothing else mattered and he was eagerly kissing the archangel back and trying to pull him even closer, as if that were actually possible. Gabriel pressed him back on the bed, climbing on top of him and settling between the hunter’s legs as he moved his lips to Sam’s neck, sucking and biting, as his hand moved down between them and he slid a slick finger in the hunter’s ass before Sam even had a chance to protest. Sam squirmed a little uncomfortably and started having second thoughts when Gabriel’s finger entered him. 

There was no way Gabriel was going to let Sam back out now. Not if he could help it. He pressed a little deeper and found the sweet spot that had Sam gasping and arching off the bed as he clutched at Gabriel’s back. The archangel smirked and increased his attentions to the hunter’s neck as he started moving his finger, paying liberal attention to Sam’s prostate, but taking care not to get him too close to coming. He was gonna be inside Sam when he came. He’d make sure of it. 

By the time Gabriel inserted a second finger, Sam wasn’t exactly coherent enough to notice. “Oh…god…Gabriel…feels…so…so good…” he gasped out. 

Gabriel was scissoring his fingers now. Now that he had gotten Sam to talking he wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait before fucking the hunter senseless. “Mmm…so good Sammy…you’re so tight…and hot…and you’re gonna…feel amazing…on my cock…” Gabriel breathed out, biting Sam’s shoulder before lifting up. “Flip over,” he gasped and he managed to keep his fingers in Sam’s tight ass as the hunter complied and got his knees under him. 

Gabriel knelt behind him, rubbing his cock over Sam’s cheeks and lower back as he inserted a third finger and reached around to stroke Sam’s cock. He was just about to the limits of even his own iron control when Sam pressed back on his fingers with a moan. “Ga…Gabe…shit…m-more…”

Gabriel was trying to be gentle with the hunter for his first time, but that broke him. He quickly slicked up his own cock, removed his fingers and sheathed himself in one quick move. Sam whimpered and Gabriel could tell that there was as much pain as pleasure in it, but he didn’t really care at the moment. “Ohfuckfuckfuckfuck,” he moaned as he tried to control himself and keep from blowing already. He stilled as much to rein himself in as to let Sam adjust, panting with the effort. When he felt Sam relax beneath him he started rolling his hips slowly, massaging himself against the hunter’s prostate and Sam quickly forgot about any pain or discomfort as he pressed himself back moaning, not even coherent enough to form words anymore. Gabriel nudged Sam’s legs open a little farther and adjusted him a little bit so that he could get a better angle and get deeper. He wanted to draw it out more, but it had been so long since he’d gotten any and Sam was just so tight and warm and responsive to everything he did so it wasn’t long before he was leaning over Sam’s back, pressing sharp bites to the hunter’s shoulders as he pounded into him hard and fast, pumping Sam in time with his thrusts. “Shit…Sam…fuck…so…so close…fuck…c-cum Sam…cum for me…” Gabriel wanted Sam to come first. He wanted Sam’s tight ass to milk his orgasm from him. He wanted to feel him tighten. “God Sam…please…fuck…I’m…I can’t…” he panted and Sam came over his hand with a low moan and Gabriel gasped out, “ohfuckyesyesyesYES!” as he drove even deeper and nearly saw stars as he exploded in the hunter with one last hard bite to his shoulder as he rode out his release. 

Once he was spent, he slowly pulled out of Sam and collapsed on the bed next to him while Sam just let his knees fall and landed flat on his stomach. “Mmm. Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Gabriel said satisfied. 

“That…that was…wow…” was all Sam managed to get out. 

Gabriel couldn’t help but chuckle. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait till we take the training wheels off,” he joked. Sam’s eyes widened at the implication. If this was with ‘training wheels’…


	9. Chapter 9

Once they had caught their breath, Sam figured that this was as close to happy as he was gonna get Gabriel and given the circumstances that brought them here it was the best time to bring up the bond. “So you said we can’t sleep with anyone but each other ever again?” 

“Why? Sick of me already?” Gabriel joked. 

Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Looked like fake Gabriel was back again. “Just wondering…what about when I get old and die?” 

“You won’t,” Gabriel said nonchalantly. 

It took a second for that to sink into Sam’s brain. “I won’t? What the hell do you mean I won’t?” Sam started to freak out a little bit. He was gonna live forever? Was he even human anymore? 

“I mean, you’re bound to me. As long as I’m alive you will be too and as long as you’re alive I will be,” Gabriel told him. 

“So I’m…I’m…immortal?” Sam asked in a voice a few octaves higher than his own. 

“Well you’re still human. You can still be killed. Please don’t since I’d die too,” he added as an aside. “But you won’t age anymore so you won’t die of old age.”

“But…but…” Sam stammered, rolling to his side to get a better look at the archangel who seemed to have no idea that he had just turned the hunter’s world on its axis. At least Gabriel had confirmed that he was still human, though he doubted that any hunters would agree. 

Gabriel knew exactly what he was doing to the hunter, but refused to acknowledge it. If he got caught up in Sam’s feelings about the whole thing then it would bring his own to the surface, and he really didn’t want to lose it on Sam again. “Any other questions?” Gabriel asked lazily. 

“I…um…is there anything else I should know?” Sam asked still trying to collect himself after that revelation. 

“Just that if we do die, we will end up sharing your heaven. But I swear to my father Winchester if you get me killed I’ll kill you,” he said partially joking and that finally drew a light chuckle from the hunter. 

Sam let his head fall forward on Gabriel’s chest and he pressed a tentative kiss to the golden skin, tasting the salty sweat on his lips. When he realized what he was doing he drew back. He had no idea where they stood and he hated that, but he didn’t think he was up for any more embarrassing conversations today. He figured they were just sleeping together for lack of options so he shouldn’t take such liberties. He glanced nervously up at Gabriel to see him looking down with a raised eyebrow as if to say, ‘what the heck was that?’ and decided he was right. Touching and kissing were for sex only. In fact, he wouldn’t mind another round, but he didn’t want to seem too needy. The last thing he wanted now was for Gabriel to deny him any more of this, so he just rolled out of bed and hesitated a second before reaching for some shorts, but he wasn’t nearly confident enough to stroll around naked like Gabriel apparently was. He would forgo the shirt though. He could go that far. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes when Sam pulled on a pair of shorts. It seemed ridiculous to wear clothes around someone you were sleeping with in his opinion, but he didn’t say anything. “So you think we could get a tour of the house?” Sam asked hopefully. If he was going to be staying here for a while he wanted to know where everything was, and he was rather hoping there was a library. He would like to take a book down on the beach to read. 

It turned out there wasn’t much in the house. Apparently when Gabriel came here it was just to enjoy the beach and he could probably snap up any other entertainment he wanted at any given time anyway so there was no need to keep a lot here. The downstairs was just the kitchen, dining room, and living room, though it was all very luxurious. Upstairs was the bedroom, and thankfully for Sam, a large library. “All of my properties have a connected transdimensional library. So many of the books I have are the last of their kind or only exist in alternate realities or other dimensions so it’s easier to just keep everything in one place and link it all together,” the archangel explained. 

“I never really took you for much of a reader,” Sam said honestly, hoping that Gabriel wouldn’t be offended by the insinuation. 

Gabriel just chuckled a bit. “It depends on the material. People are very imaginative. It’s not something that comes easily to angels, even archangels. Most of the ideas I get are from books or tabloids.”

“Ideas?” Sam asked. “You mean like your ideas for torturing and killing people?” He really hated to bring this up but it needed to be said. It needed to be gotten out in the open, especially after Gabriel reminded him of it earlier before they had gotten sidetracked. If he expected Sam to sit idly by while he did so in the future, he needed to make it clear that wasn’t going to happen. 

“Are you really so blind and hypocritical that you aren’t even going to ask WHY I do what I do?” 

“What do you mean why? You kill people. What justification could there be for that?” 

“You’re kidding me right? And what do you and your brother do huh? What difference is there between humans and the other sentient beings that you kill?” Gabriel asked starting to get annoyed. 

“We kill monsters. Monsters that kill people,” Sam said defensively. 

“Monsters kill people to survive. People kill people for fun. Which is the real monster?” Gabriel snapped. 

“That’s not the point!” Sam protested. He had to protest because if Gabriel was right then he was little more than a murderer. No better than the monsters he hunted. 

“It’s exactly the point!” Gabriel shot back. “They have families too, children, parents, spouses. They are loved and cared for just as much as any human, so you tell me where the difference is. You kill to save lives and so do I. And I have a hell of a lot better track record than you do, mister let Lucifer out of the box,” he said harshly. He didn’t expect Sam to just accept his self-appointed job with no fuss at all, but the hunter’s refusal to even listen and his snap judgements about Gabriel’s character just pissed him off. He knew as soon as he said it that it was a low blow, but it was too late to take it back, if he even would have. If that’s what it took to pull Sam’s head out of his ass, then oh well. 

Sam just gaped at him for a moment before he stormed out, slamming the library door so hard some of the books fell off the shelves. He knew he couldn’t go far, but the bedroom was just next door. Hopefully that would be close enough. He just couldn’t be in the same room with Gabriel right now. Not after that. He walked into the bedroom, glad that he wasn’t having any effects from the bond being strained and he slammed that door just as hard as he had the library door and hoped Gabriel got the hint to leave him alone. He paced the room, angrily wiping the tears from his face. How dare he? How dare he throw that in Sam’s face like that? Like Sam hadn’t done everything humanly possible and even everything not humanly possible to fix it. He screwed up. He knew that. He didn’t need yet another person throwing it in his face. And to try and use his mistakes to justify cold-blooded murder? Sam spun and punched one of the bamboo poles holding the canopy on the bed and it cracked in half causing the canopy to fall down. 

It was a combination of rage and guilt and the desire to keep everything that Gabriel had said and implied from going too deep in his head that led to his next actions as he grabbed the broken pole, ripped the fabric off of it and used it to completely trash the room. All the knick knacks and odds and ends on the dresser were the first casualties as they were swept onto the floor in a huge crash. The furniture was upended and in pieces, clothes were scattered haphazardly around the room as the dressers containing them were shredded. By the time the pole went through the glass door leading to the balcony Sam was out of things to break and just fell to his knees in the center of the ruined room as the tears flowed freely. 

Gabriel heard Sam’s temper tantrum, but saw no need to interrupt him. Best to let him get it all out of his system. Gabriel could fix everything later, and maybe once the hunter stopped acting like a spoiled child he would actually open his mind for two seconds and listen for once in his life. He needed to be knocked off his high horse, because Gabriel sure as hell wasn’t going to put up with this garbage. He just grabbed a book and reclined in one of the comfortable wing-backed chairs and waited him out. If Sam wanted to talk then he could damn well come to him.


	10. Chapter 10

When Gabriel heard the banging and crashing stop, he waited a few minutes to see if Sam was going to come back and talk like a civilized person, but when the hunter didn’t show up, he couldn’t resist the urge to peek in on him. He wouldn’t put it past the hunter to kill himself in order to kill Gabriel, all in the name of saving people of course, because Sam really could be that stupid sometimes. He wasn’t about to become a target himself though so he appeared in the room completely invisible. The first thing he noticed was the total destruction and he was impressed. Sam definitely didn’t do things by halves. When he noticed the hunter on his knees in the center of the storm with his arms wrapped around his middle like he was trying to hold himself together as he sobbed, Gabriel had a lump forming in his throat. He started to reach out for the distraught hunter, but he caught himself. Sam needed to wake up. He may have been harsh, but it was apparently the only way to make the stubborn man listen. This wasn’t his problem, and he didn’t give a shit how much it hurt Sam if it opened his eyes. 

Just to be on the safe side, Gabriel removed all the guns and knives from the room and if Sam was desperate enough to try and use some of the broken shards of glass or ceramic littering the room, Gabriel would have enough time to heal him before he bled out. Gabriel had every intention of keeping a close monitor on Sam’s health, but he wasn’t about to sit here and watch this pity party. He went back to the library and picked his book back up, taking it out to the balcony. He didn’t get much read though. He couldn’t keep his mind off of Sam. It was getting harder and harder to convince himself that he didn’t care and that didn’t do much other than piss him off. How the hell could he let some measly little human get under his skin? It had to be the guilt. He felt guilty for what he said, despite the fact that Sam needed to hear it. Oh well. He would get over it. 

As Sam fell apart, he couldn’t help but hear Gabriel’s words echoing in his mind. Not the ones about Lucifer. He knew where he stood there. He knew how many people were dead because of him and the guilt would never leave him, but he was used to managing with that. Gabriel had reopened the wound, but it was fading back into the background again as he tried to pull himself together. It was the part about him being as bad as Gabriel. About him killing things with families, things that were just trying to survive, and now that all the anger had been burned from his system he couldn’t deny that Gabriel was right. Humans killed each other for far worse reasons, but that was different…wasn’t it?

Humans could deal with other humans. Put them in jail, protect themselves. But he, more than most as an aspiring law student, knew how flawed the legal system was, how corrupt. He knew that so many victims couldn’t protect themselves. That’s why they were victims after all. Was it really so different? Was his only basis for his position the way he was raised to believe that if it wasn’t human it didn’t deserve to live? That if it wasn’t human it didn’t matter? The way Gabriel had referred to them as sentient beings rattled around in his head. Sentient beings. That meant something. What made humans better than them? Was the fact that they were a different race justification enough to treat them differently? He really didn’t like the way that sounded. It sounded too much like bigotry, and if it sounded that way to him, what must it seem like to others. He realized that he was classifying Gabriel in the didn’t deserve to live category too and suddenly he couldn’t blame the archangel for his temper. Of course he lashed out.

Killing monsters who were killing people was one thing, but how often did they really stop to check? To make sure that they were killing the guilty party. How often did they just say, oh well it’s not human so it needs to die? Far more often than Sam was comfortable admitting. In fact, the only time he had stopped was when it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they didn’t and wouldn’t harm a person. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t they make sure that they were guilty before taking such a drastic action as death? Was Gabriel right? Gabriel had said that he killed people to save lives. If that made it okay for hunters, did it make it okay for Gabriel? Hell the archangel had the means to make absolutely sure that he didn’t make a mistake and take out the wrong person. That was more than any human had. If that was the case though, then why had Gabriel saved him? He had gotten more people killed than anyone could imagine. Taking him out would have saved thousands of lives, if not more. 

Sam had ended up sitting on his butt on the floor, elbows on his knees and head in his hands as he turned everything over in his mind. He thought back on every case he’d had, every monster he killed, and especially every encounter he’d had with Gabriel. He didn’t notice the passage of time. He didn’t notice when he missed lunch and then dinner. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice anything until he realized that it was dark out. He knew he needed to talk to Gabriel, but he felt the need to steel himself for that conversation first. Maybe the peace of the ocean could help him. He picked his way over all the broken glass and furniture and everything else, and really hoped that there hadn’t been anything irreplaceable in there and that Gabriel could fix it. He didn’t need any more guilt on his shoulders. 

As he stood on the balcony looking out over the ocean he didn’t notice the small ball of light at the other end of the balcony, suspended in the air as Gabriel sat there with his book on his lap as he watched Sam watch the waves, hair blowing in the salt sea breeze. Seeing Sam standing there like that looking so haunted, yet so majestic, he felt a pang of affection, but quickly swatted it away and loudly closed his book to get the hunter’s attention, or at least clue him in that Gabriel was there. 

Sam jumped and spun around. “Gabriel!” he gasped in shock. “What…I mean…um…can we talk?” he asked hopefully. 

Gabriel crossed his arms and said, “Talk.” It wasn’t said in an angry voice, more of a wary one. As if he were saying that he better like what he hears or else. 

“I…I’m sorry. You were…you were right. I should have heard you out. Given you a chance to explain.”

“That’s it?” Gabriel asked as though there should be more. 

“And I’m sorry for destroying your bedroom,” Sam added. That was the best Gabriel was going to get right now. “I won’t apologize for my assumptions about you until after I’ve heard you out and see if I was wrong.”

“Fair enough. You willing to listen now?” Gabriel said tightly. 

“Yeah. I’m listening.”

“I kill people who knowingly and maliciously destroy the lives of others and would continue to do so if not stopped. That’s it. End of story.”

“So the professor at the college?” Sam asked needing examples. 

“Raping his students and flunking them out if they tried to tell anyone, driving many of them to suicide.”

“The researcher?” 

“Enjoyed torturing and killing, people, animals, it didn’t matter to him. As long as it could scream it was fair game. He got off on their screams. Literally.”

Sam took a deep breath and swallowed audibly before he got to the one he really needed to know. The why that would make all the difference. “Dean?”

“Was never going to stay dead. That’s why he only died within the time loop. No way for his soul to move on. I just needed you to learn to let go so you wouldn’t go all vengeance and get hooked on demon blood and go after Lilith, but you wouldn’t listen. Even when I laid everything out at the end, you refused to even hear what I was saying, much less consider it, so I knew it was futile to keep playing. I gave you your precious brother back and steeled myself for the end.”

“But you stopped it. You saved me. More than once,” Sam said more to himself than to Gabriel. Trying to make sense of it. 

“Yeah. Really regretting that now,” Gabriel said petulantly. 

Sam sucked in a sharp breath at Gabriel’s words. Oh he already knew that Gabriel hated the way he’d saved Sam in the end, but this was the first time Gabriel had said that he regretted doing it altogether and it stung. A lot. Sam couldn’t blame him though. Not now. “The first time we met. Was that on purpose or just a coincidence?” 

“You should know by now, I don’t do coincidence,” Gabriel told him. 

“Why?” Sam asked. 

“Because I knew what was coming for you two. I thought that if I could get you to listen, get you to see, then maybe, just maybe you would have someone to call for help when the demons made their move on you. That maybe Dean wouldn’t have to sell his soul and this whole thing could be avoided.”

He’d had a feeling that talking to Gabriel was going to be difficult, but he had no idea it would be this hard. That it would open this many wounds, and bring so much baggage with it. “Gabriel…I’m…I’m sorry. Really. About everything.”


	11. Chapter 11

Sam felt terrible. All that time they had spent at first hating, then resenting Gabriel and all he had ever tried to do was help. Both them and everyone else. He had sacrificed so much, most recently to save Sam and here he was acting like a child and throwing tantrums. Sam knew that something shifted in that moment, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he didn’t really care right now. He could figure it out later. Right now all he wanted to do was make sure that Gabriel knew how much he appreciated it and how sorry he was and he leaned over and captured Gabriel in a desperate kiss, falling to his knees in front of the archangel to get a better angle.

Gabriel was caught off guard when Sam kissed him. He hadn’t been expecting that. He’d heard the apology, and hadn’t yet decided if he was going to make the hunter suffer a little longer before accepting, but Sam’s lips on his were so difficult to deny, and he found himself kissing Sam back just as eagerly. His hands tangled in Sam’s hair as he easily took control of the kiss and Sam practically melted into it and the forgiveness it promised. Gabriel didn’t know if he would ever get over the way Sam responded to his attentions. Of course, he knew it wouldn’t last. All this was just so new to the hunter, and before long it would lose its spark, but that was all the more reason to enjoy it while it lasted. It didn’t take long for Gabriel’s body to join the game and he grabbed Sam’s wrist and pulled his hand from where it rested around his neck and slid it down to his cock. He could feel Sam’s hesitation as he wrapped Sam’s hand around himself and thrust into it. 

Sam was more than a little nervous about this part. He had never touched a cock other than his own before, but he supposed he would have to get used to it. Hell, Gabriel’s cock had been inside him. How much more difficult could this be? He squeezed and started stroking Gabriel, swallowing the archangel’s moan as he rubbed his thumb over the slit, smearing the pre-cum over the swollen head. The next thing he knew, Gabriel’s lips weren’t on his anymore and the hand in his hair had pressed his head down so that he was hovering just over Gabriel’s leaking cock. “G-Gabriel,” he stuttered nervously. “I-I’ve…um…I’ve never…”

“Oh fuck, Sammy, please,” Gabriel breathed out. Sam took a deep breath to steady himself even as Gabriel pressed his head down a little further rubbing his cock against Sam’s lips in an entreaty for him to open. Okay. He could do this. He knew what he liked, so he was sure he could figure this out. Practice makes perfect after all, and he had warned Gabriel that he had no idea what he was doing so it was hardly Sam’s fault if he was terrible at it. “God, Sam, open…please,” Gabriel gasped. Feeling the hunter’s hot breath over him while his hand was still wrapped around him, even if it was still now, was driving him crazy. 

Sam swallowed audibly and opened his mouth, taking just the head in and sucked hard as his tongue swiped over the slit and Gabriel gave a whimpering moan. “Oh shit yes!” He gasped as Sam started to move his lips and tongue over the shaft sucking all the while, and Gabriel’s hand tightened in his hair. He let Sam take his time and get used to the feel of it, enjoying the hunter’s experimentation immensely, but he couldn’t last forever and after a while, he couldn’t take any more and started thrusting up into the hunter’s mouth, pressing Sam’s head down farther and farther and Sam started gagging. 

“Relax, Sam,” he panted out. “Just…ohfuckshityes…just relax,” he didn’t let up. He was too close. He could feel Sam trying to relax his throat and it took a few thrusts before he managed to take him without gagging and instinctively swallowed around the cock hitting the back of his throat, making Gabriel’s thrusts go even more frantic as he reached the edge. “Oh…yes…shit…Sam…fuck…I’m…I’m coming…aargh!” He buried Sam’s nose deep in his pelvis as he sprayed down the hunter’s throat and Sam managed to swallow without choking too much. 

When Gabriel’s cock stopped pulsing and his hand loosened in Sam’s hair, the hunter lifted his head and sat back on his heels. “Now that’s an apology,” Gabriel said breathlessly as his head fell back against the back of the chair. 

Sam just gave a self-satisfied grin as he looked up at the sated archangel. He couldn’t say that the experience was entirely pleasant, but it wasn’t bad, and he had to admit he enjoyed being able to take Gabriel apart like that. He figured with a little practice he could definitely start to enjoy that. And he definitely enjoyed the completely debauched look Gabriel had going here. Of course his stomach had to ruin the moment as it gave a loud growl. 

Gabriel chuckled and snapped his fingers and some sandwiches appeared on the railing. Sam gave a sheepish look as he got up and sat in the chair next to Gabriel’s and started eating. Gabriel took another minute to catch his breath before he got up and walked to the other end of the balcony and took a long look at the bedroom. “Whew. You really did a number on this place,” he said shaking his head as he snapped his fingers and everything was repaired. He left the clothes and intact odds and ends on the floor though. He wasn’t going to clean up all Sam’s mess after all. “Everything’s fixed. You can finish cleaning up tomorrow if you’re too tired tonight,” Gabriel told him. 

Sam knew that Gabriel could clean everything up with just a snap of his fingers, but he wasn’t going to argue. He had been the one to destroy the entire room. Gabriel could have made him clean everything up, shards and all, and he would have been well within his rights to do so. “Nothing was…irreplaceable or anything was it?” Sam asked worriedly. 

“Don’t worry. I put anything I couldn’t fix away before bringing a human here,” Gabriel said amusedly. Sam couldn’t help the snort of laughter at that. He considered making a comment about not being a toddler, but he didn’t really have a leg to stand on given the circumstances. 

By the time he finished his sandwiches, he was starting to nod off so he headed for the now repaired but still a mess bedroom and collapsed into bed, and Gabriel went back out to the balcony to amuse himself for the night. As was becoming usual, he found his thoughts straying often to the sleeping hunter. He was glad that Sam had finally listened and understood, but he couldn’t figure out why he had been quite so honest with him. He hadn’t really intended on explaining his interactions with him. They hardly mattered now anyway. He just wanted Sam to understand why he killed people so he wouldn’t get quite so much pushback when he went back to his job. When Sam asked him the questions though, he couldn’t help but answer. Some part of him wanted Sam to understand that too. He realized that he wanted Sam to actually like him, not just physically and that confused him. As long as he was getting some, why should he care if Sam liked him or not? Then again, it might make it easier to seduce the hunter more often if Sam liked him, so he supposed it was a good thing. He just wished he didn’t do so much without thinking when it came to Sam. Usually every move he made was calculated to have exactly the effect he wanted it to. He’d never made so many moves without conscious thought in his entire life and given that he had been around longer than time, that was saying something. It was more than a little uncomfortable and almost felt like he wasn’t in control of himself anymore and he hated that. 

Even more though, he hated that he couldn’t understand Sam. He had never expected the hunter to admit so freely that he was wrong and offer up an apology with no strings attached. He had expected a backdoor acknowledgement that Gabriel might have a point and a hastily implied apology at best, but Sam had come to him, hat in hand, with a genuine apology and that caught him off guard. Sam had to be playing some kind of angle, but he couldn’t see what it was and that irritated him. What did Sam want? He was no closer to an answer when the sun started peeking over the horizon and he heard Sam start to stir.


	12. Chapter 12

As Gabriel turned to watch Sam stumble sleepily towards the bathroom, he felt that pang of affection again and suddenly everything just slotted into place and he froze. His book fell from his lap to clatter to the floor and he could feel the panic welling up in him. No. Nonononono. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. He didn’t do love. This was ridiculous. No way. He knew better. He knew better than to give anyone that kind of power over him. The power to hurt him. To break him. Even his subconscious would never do something so stupid. And with a human hunter no less? 

The panic overwhelmed him for a while as denials and fears kept running through his head, but when he heard the shower turn off, he knew he had to pull himself together. He couldn’t let Sam see him like this. He picked up his book and threw up a hasty mask as he steeled himself for Sam’s emergence. When Sam came out of the bathroom, Gabriel grinned and chirped, “Morning sunshine.”

“Morning,” Sam muttered as he started to pick up the mess on the floor. He would feel better when all sign of his loss of control was gone, and he wasn’t about to let Gabriel tell him again to clean it up and make him feel like a child. 

“You can eat breakfast first,” Gabriel said amusedly. 

“Nah. That’s okay. It won’t take long,” Sam said, dumping an armful of clothes on the bed to fold. It seemed that Gabriel wasn’t kidding about not often wearing clothes here, because as he was folding, he realized that Gabriel’s clothes consisted of five pairs of shorts and two t-shirts. Funny how it had taken him so long that first morning to dig out something to wear…Sam’s rhythm in folding the clothes faltered as something dawned on him. He folded the rest of the clothes and put them away on autopilot as his mind worked over what he knew. No way should it have taken him that long to find something to put on. And when they’d had their food fight, Gabriel had snapped his fingers and cleaned up the kitchen, but not them. He could have easily cleaned them up too without having to wash off in the ocean. Then the tai-chi when he woke up yesterday morning. Gabriel didn’t even need to shower so why had he that first morning? And then this morning, nothing. As he placed the last of the odds and ends back on the dresser, he turned back to Gabriel. “You’ve been teasing me?!” he accused, slightly annoyed, but mostly amused. 

Gabriel’s lips twitched as he realized that the hunter had finally figured it out. Not that he would ever admit to such a thing of course. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said smugly as he headed downstairs, knowing that Sam would follow him. 

Sam wanted an admission though. He didn’t want to let it go. His curiosity wouldn’t let him. He didn’t understand why Gabriel didn’t just make a move or something if that was what he wanted. “All the nudity?”

“I’m always naked here,” Gabriel said honestly. 

“And the shower yesterday?” 

“I do enjoy showers from time to time and after being stuck in one room for a month, I felt the need to wash off.”

Sam didn’t know how much he bought that, given that he could have washed off in the ocean and not been stuck in an even smaller room for the time it took him to shower. Not to mention waiting until Sam was waking up to do so, but it was plausible enough so he would let it go for now. “And how long it took you to find something to wear when you hardly have any clothes?”

“I was trying to decide if I wanted to wear anything at all and spare your delicate sensibilities,” Gabriel had an answer for everything. 

“And the way you didn’t just snap us clean after the food fight? That little show as you were washing off?” Sam asked smugly. He was sure he had him there. 

Gabriel faltered for a minute. He really didn’t have an answer to that one. He recovered quickly enough that it was unlikely that Sam noticed, and thought of the first lie he could come up with. “Using my powers to remove sticky stuff irritates my skin,” he said unconvincingly. 

Sam laughed as he filled up a plate from the morning spread Gabriel had snapped up. “That’s really the best lie you could come up with?” 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Like you could do better,” he scoffed, knowing he had been caught so giving a little, but Sam would still never hear an actual admission. 

“Oh I don’t know. What about ‘after fighting with your soul my powers were too weak for such delicate work’?” Sam said haughtily. He was never one to back down from a challenge. Gabriel narrowed his eyes at the hunter who just grinned. “I lie for a living remember,” he reminded the archangel. 

“So do I,” Gabriel pouted. 

“Yes, but I don’t have a safety net with the ability to change people’s memories or perceptions,” Sam pointed out not really trying to hide his amusement. 

“Whatever. Just eat your breakfast,” Gabriel said petulantly causing Sam to laugh and just do as he was told, leaving Gabriel free to lose himself in his thoughts again. He didn’t want to admit how much he had enjoyed that banter. Seeing Sam so free and relaxed with him. At least now he knew why he always got uncomfortable when he thought too much on his motivations. He didn’t want to know. Too bad he couldn’t just forget now that he did. He took some time to think back over everything he had done with this new information. Sacrificing himself to Lucifer to save Sam, pulling Sam’s soul from the pit, doing anything and everything to keep his soul from going back there, even bonding with him. This was a nightmare. How could he have let this happen? What the hell was so special about the stupid little hunter in the first place? He was just a human. Like any other human. Rats in a maze. 

Except he wasn’t. He had a habit of remaking his own maze. That wasn’t normal. And the way he had endured all the crap in his life and came through the other side a good person, misguided yes, but still good at the core, was unheard of. He was Lucifer’s vessel. All that was supposed to corrupt him. To change him. To make him more like Lucifer. The demon blood was to complete his transformation into a monster. But Sam persevered. How could anyone do that? And then rewriting destiny like that? No. Sam was no average human. But special enough to awaken Gabriel’s cold heart? This was ridiculous. 

Sam had finished eating and was just watching Gabriel as he stared blankly out the window, apparently lost in thought. Sam wished he knew what Gabriel was thinking so hard about, but he knew that Gabriel would never tell him. Never tell him the truth at least and he didn’t want to hear a lie, so he didn’t even bother asking. “So I was thinking…” he said waiting until the archangel had jerked out of his reverie and was paying attention before continuing. “Maybe you could teach me how to swim in the ocean today. You know, since it’s so different and all.” 

“Yeah that’s probably a good idea. I’d hate to have to keep fishing you out of the ocean every time you try to drown,” Gabriel joked, burying all the turmoil he was feeling deep beneath the surface as they headed outside. He could freak out again when Sam was asleep tonight. 

As Gabriel headed for the water, Sam called for him to wait. “I just ate,” Sam pointed out. When that just got him a confused look, he explained. “Us humans have to wait half an hour after we eat before we go into the water or we’re likely to get muscle cramps.”

“You’re kidding,” Gabriel said in disbelief. Sam shook his head as he tried not to laugh at the dumbfounded look on the archangel’s face. “You humans really are fragile huh,” he scoffed. “Well I’m gonna go swimming. Just join me when you’re ready.”

Sam just smiled and went to sit on one of the chairs while he watched Gabriel frolic in the water. He was starting to get used to Gabriel’s nudity, and now that he knew he could touch it wasn’t quite so difficult to control his reactions. Plus, Gabriel was just playing now, not showing off and trying to tease him. He had another brief moment of wondering why Gabriel would play those games, but then he realized that it was Gabriel. Of course he played games. Being honest and direct were as foreign to the archangel as muscle cramps were.


	13. Chapter 13

Sam waited until Gabriel’s back was to him before he started heading towards the water. He was going to try and sneak up on the archangel, despite knowing how futile it was. It didn’t mean he couldn’t try. He was about five feet away from Gabriel when a wave caught him mid-step and swept him off his feet and he started grabbing for anything he could as he went down. 

Gabriel let out a squawk as he felt a hand wrap around his ankle and pull him under. By the time he got his feet back under him they were about chest deep, and Gabriel figured it would be easier to teach him the basics closer to shore so he just flew them back to shore. “I already knew you needed the lessons. You didn’t have to convince me,” he said wryly trying not to laugh. 

Sam gave a sheepish shrug. At least he had surprised the archangel, even if it didn’t go according to plan. He let Gabriel lead him out about ankle deep and show him how to keep his feet planted and shift his weight when a wave was both coming and going. The way the sand was pulled from under his feet during the process kept throwing Sam off, but he managed to figure it out and keep himself on his feet before Gabriel took them out to their knees. 

The first wave that came in at that depth knocked him a little off balance and he had to grab Gabriel’s shoulder to keep himself upright, but when he looked up and caught the archangel’s eyes, he was knocked off balance in another way as it suddenly hit him what had changed last night with their talk. He had fallen in love with Gabriel. This realization caught him so off guard that he had no hope of standing up to the next wave that completely knocked him off his feet and into Gabriel’s arms, that tightened around him to keep him from being swept away by the sea again, but sweeping him away in a different way. 

He heard Gabriel’s ringing laugh and could feel the vibrations in the archangel’s chest as he tried to right himself and he found that he needed to get some distance. He needed to wrap his head around this and he couldn’t do that like this. They had been out here for a while anyway so a break wouldn’t be out of place. “Let’s…um…take a break,” he managed to get out as he pulled himself from the warm arms surrounding him and started making his way back to shore. 

Gabriel shook off his own complacency and followed wondering what had happened there. He had seen a lightbulb go off in Sam’s mind just before he fell and then Gabriel was too distracted by the feel of Sam in his arms to try and figure it out. When Sam headed for the hammocks instead of the chairs, not looking back at Gabriel, he figured the hunter wanted to be alone, so he just plopped in one of the chairs to try and figure it out. When a possibility hit him, he felt an icy fear go through him. Had his mask slipped? Had Sam seen a hint of what he had just figured out about his own feelings? That would definitely explain him keeping his distance all of a sudden, but Gabriel didn’t think he could have let slip. He was far too practiced in such things. Sam did have a way of getting under his skin in such a way though. His masks had crumbled more often in the last few days than they had in centuries thanks to him. That had to be it. Sam had figured out that Gabriel felt something for him and he was making his stance clear. 

Sam sank into the hammock with a groan. How could he let this happen? Gabriel had made it perfectly clear how he felt about being stuck with Sam and then Sam had to go and fall for the guy? The guy he was essentially married to and sleeping with just for lack of better options. The guy who wanted nothing to do with him besides a roll in the hay when he got the itch. This was a disaster. How the hell was he supposed to keep his heart from breaking? To pretend that it meant as little to him as it did to Gabriel? Gabriel would never let him live it down if he found out. He started making a plan to keep Gabriel off his game. He didn’t think he would be able to completely hide it during sex, but that would be easy to play off like it was nothing as long as he didn’t let on in their normal interactions, and nothing would be more suspicious than if he suddenly stopped the lessons he just started. Despite how close it put him to Gabriel, he would have to continue. But then again, maybe that was a good thing. It would give him an excuse to be close to him and touch him, as long as Sam could keep himself in check and not go overboard or be too obvious. As that thought hit him, a plate of hot dogs and chips landed on his stomach so he figured it must be lunchtime. As he sat up to eat he looked over at Gabriel to find the archangel staring out over the water and he ran admiring eyes over Gabriel’s profile as he ate on autopilot. 

Sam wasn’t sure how long it had been since he finished eating, but it had to have been at least half an hour so he got up and headed over to Gabriel. “Ready to try again?” he asked cheerfully. 

Gabriel looked up and managed to keep the surprise off his face as he gave an unaffected shrug and got up. Apparently he had been wrong. Sam didn’t figure him out. Or had dismissed it as being as ridiculous as it seemed to Gabriel. Or maybe the hunter really had been just tired. Gabriel did have a tendency to forget how easily humans tired. Either way, he was in the clear so he had a little spring back in his step as they headed back out to the water. 

It didn’t take much longer for Sam to have the hang of staying on his feet, so Gabriel started teaching him how to ride the currents and regain his footing after doing so, how to work with the waves rather than against them, and most importantly how not to panic when he was pulled under. Gabriel briefly considered modifying things so that the waves weren’t as large or the current not as strong, but he didn’t want to clue the hunter into the fact that they were in another dimension of his creation, and Sam was just smart enough to figure out that changing those sorts of things on earth would affect more than just this little island, so it was safer to work with what they had. He knew there would be a fallout anyway when they left this dimension and he found out about the time discrepancy here, but he wanted to put that off at least until it was too late to do anything about it. In the meantime, he was enjoying the perfect excuse to be close to Sam. 

Sam, too, enjoyed the afternoon for the same reason and didn’t come out of the water until his muscles were burning with fatigue. He made it to the chair before collapsing and Gabriel snapped up some dinner. Pizza this time. Sam would need to have a talk with him soon about food. Sam wasn’t vehemently opposed to the types of food he’d been eating; he couldn’t be with Dean around, but he did prefer something a little healthier when he had a choice. 

As they lounged in the chairs watching the sunset as the rising tide started to lap at their feet, Sam had to stop himself more than once from reaching over to take Gabriel’s hand. The entire situation was so romantic and perfect. If only Gabriel wanted the same thing he did. Little did he know that Gabriel was thinking the same thing.


	14. Chapter 14

The sun was nearly set when Gabriel made his move. Maybe he couldn’t let Sam find out how he felt, but they had already agreed that sex was on the table so there was that. Gabriel grabbed Sam’s hand and yanked him over to the towel that had appeared on the sand, a little bit further back than the chairs so they wouldn’t be interrupted by the rising tide and he pushed the hunter down on the towel before straddling his lap and kissing him roughly. Sam immediately responded, one hand going to the back of Gabriel’s neck and the other going to the archangel’s ass, pulling him down tightly. Sam’s influence on the kiss had it softening and Gabriel let it. He could always say he was just letting Sam set the tone. He would still have to be careful not to let too much show though, but he could do this. It was sex. If there was anything he was good at it was this. 

Sam kissed him softly and gently, hands roaming over his sides and back and ass, and Gabriel found himself getting lost in the moment, and more importantly losing the will to care. Sam’s shorts disappeared with just a thought from Gabriel and he shifted his legs to between Sam’s, lifting the hunter and pressing a lubed finger past the tight ring of muscles, not breaking the kiss as he did so. Sam slid a hand between them and wrapped both of their hard cocks in his large hand and they both moaned at the sensation, their kisses gaining more urgency and Gabriel’s finger moving faster as he found the sweet spot that sent Sam into a litany of needy whimpers and he threw his head back and arched up off the towel. 

Gabriel took the opportunity to press a line of slow, soft kisses down the hunter’s throat, back up the side of his neck and nibbling on Sam’s ear as he pressed a second finger in and Sam’s hand started moving slowly over both of their cocks as they both thrust into each movement, sliding against each other, pre-cum lubricating as they went. Gabriel paid a little more attention to the hunter’s neck before moving back to his lips as he pressed a third finger inside. Sam moaned into Gabriel’s mouth as the archangel’s free hand wandered over Sam’s chest. When Sam was ready, Gabriel pulled himself from the hunter’s grip and lined up, pressing in slowly. 

Their lips were still touching, but they were more panting than kissing and one of Sam’s hands moved from the back of Gabriel’s neck to the side of his face as he tilted his head so that their foreheads were touching while he lifted his hips to meet the archangel’s slow glide in and out of him. They were both too overcome for words and the only sounds were their moans and whimpers and grunts, and as Gabriel slowly picked up his pace, the slapping of flesh against flesh. Their lips met again in a deep kiss as their sweat slick bodies moved together and soon Gabriel’s thrusts became frantic as he reached down and pushed Sam’s hand out of the way and started stroking the hunter to completion, his noises mixing with Sam’s as they reached the edge and when Gabriel came inside Sam with a whimpering moan, that was all it took to push Sam over the edge with him, and as they finished their kiss turned from desperate to soft and sweet, before they finally parted for air. Sam’s thumb brushed over Gabriel’s cheekbone as he came down from the high, before he realized what he was doing…what they had done. That wasn’t just sex. That was…more. That was…everything. 

Gabriel realized that too and froze for a brief second before collecting himself and resolving to ignore it, hoping that Sam would do the same. He pulled his softening cock from the hunter’s ass and plastered a sated grin on his face, pressing one last quick impish kiss to the hunter’s lips as he rolled off and got to his feet. He reached down a hand to help Sam up, quirking an eyebrow when he didn’t take it. “I just need a minute,” Sam said breathlessly and Gabriel shrugged and headed for the water to rinse off and try to get his head back on straight. That had affected him far more than he would ever admit to anyone, even himself. 

By the time Gabriel went back up to the beach he snorted in amusement to see that Sam was fast asleep on the towel and he snapped his fingers moving Sam to the bed, not bothering to replace his shorts, and he headed out to the balcony. He put his hands on the railing and leaned against it, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. This was getting out of hand. There was a reason he didn’t do feelings. It always ended badly and now he felt like he was dangling off the side of a cliff waiting for the rock under his hand to crumble sending him plummeting to his death. He took a few more centering breaths before grabbing a book and trying to keep his mind occupied and off the sleeping hunter and especially stop wondering if he could manage to slip into bed and wrap himself in Sam’s arms without waking him up. 

Sam woke slowly as the sun peeked in the room and just lay there for a few minutes as his mind wandered to the previous night and what had happened on the beach and he started to second guess his assumption that Gabriel didn’t care. There was no way that didn’t mean anything to the archangel. As he looked back on it, he could practically see the façade falling away and the emergence of the real Gabriel. No games, no masks, no walls, just Gabriel and it was intoxicating. His bladder finally roused him from the bed and he grunted a response to the archangel’s cheery, “Morning sleepyhead,” as he headed for the bathroom. 

As he stood under the shower spray he thought some more. He thought about how Gabriel had said he didn’t know why he went to such lengths to save Sam. Why he had sacrificed so much for him and he wondered if Gabriel just didn’t want to see why. There had to be a reason that he kept his real self so completely hidden from the world. Could Gabriel really love him? Could he have loved him all along? Could Sam take the risk of being wrong? That was the big question. He was basically stuck in close proximity with Gabriel for the rest of eternity, come what may. If he took a chance and it blew up in his face, that would not bode well for the future. Whatever he did he would have to be careful. He had a feeling that breaking through Gabriel’s walls would be like walking a minefield. 

By the time he stepped out of what turned into a very long shower, he had a tentative plan of action. As they sat at the breakfast table, Gabriel had his usual unaffected and slightly amused at everything mask firmly in place and Sam asked, “Why do you do that?” 

“Do what, Sammich?” Gabriel asked lazily. 

“You hide everything behind this veneer of…I don’t know…disinterest? Like you don’t let anyone see even a hint of the real you.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes briefly at the hunter before he leaned back and plastered a smirk on his face. “What makes you think this isn’t the real me?” he asked glibly. 

“Because I’ve seen the real you. It’s…deeper. This is just…a façade,” Sam said. 

“So you think I’m not the real me because I’m not deep? Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but while I do have my moments, I’m essentially a very shallow creature,” he lied easily. 

“No, you’re not,” Sam insisted. “You want me to think you are, but you’re not. I just don’t know why.”

Gabriel had a brief internal struggle on how to react to that. He obviously wasn’t going to be able to convince Sam that he was wrong. He finally settled on a sharp, “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” Sam said earnestly, realizing from Gabriel’s tone that he was getting rather close to one of those mines and trying to step carefully. When Gabriel just set his jaw and turned to look out the window, Sam said, “Come on Gabriel. We’re like married or bonded or whatever. I’m not asking for you to bare all, but give me something. Please.”

The muscle in Gabriel’s jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth in annoyance. Maybe if he just gave him something, Sam would leave him alone about this. “Fine. You want to know why? Because letting anyone see the real me means they can see my weaknesses. It means giving them the power to hurt me and manipulate me, and I won’t give anyone that power,” he said harshly.


	15. Chapter 15

Sam looked appraisingly at Gabriel. His tone said that he didn’t want to talk about this, but Sam couldn’t just let it go at that. He knew this was going to end badly, but maybe in the long run it would do some good. “But it also means giving them a chance to care about you and be there for you.”

“Yeah until they turn on me,” he snapped. 

“So this is better then? This…nothing…you have now?” Sam asked getting annoyed. He just wanted a chance. That’s all. Gabriel’s insistence that he would turn on him was just insulting. “You’re so afraid of letting anyone in that hiding from the world is a better option for you?” 

“I’m not a coward,” Gabriel snarled, not liking what Sam was implying and firmly remembering Dean calling him a coward and Sam agreeing with him. 

“Then stop acting like one,” Sam shot back heatedly. 

“Why the fuck do you even care?” Gabriel asked eyes flashing dangerously. 

“Because I do damnit!” Sam snapped and realized that he needed to get out of here before he said something he would regret and turned on his heel and left the room, heading up the stairs and to the bedroom slamming the door before he fell back on the bed in a huff wondering how the hell things had deteriorated so fast.

As he heard Sam stomping up the stairs, he got up and stormed to the living room, hoping that would be close enough to satisfy the bond and started pacing. What was Sam’s problem? Why couldn’t he just leave things alone? It’s not like Gabriel was being an ass to him or anything. He was trying to be agreeable and pleasant, but Sam just wouldn’t stop pushing. It just wasn’t good enough for him. 

Once his anger had worked its way out of his system, he plopped down on the couch and sighed. Why couldn’t it be good enough? What did Sam gain by all this? He said that it mattered; that he cared, but why? Did Sam really care…could he possibly…no. He stopped that train of thought in its tracks. He couldn’t go there. He couldn’t allow himself to hope. He didn’t want to hope. He had to talk to Sam. Get this all out in the open before his mind ran away with him. 

Gabriel got up and headed up the stairs, peeking the bedroom door open to make sure Sam wasn’t having another fit, and saw the hunter sprawled on the bed, hands behind his head. Sam turned towards him and raised an eyebrow as if to ask, ‘you coming in or not’ so Gabriel came in and went over to sit on the edge of the bed facing Sam. “What do you want from me Sam?” he asked weakly. 

Sam sat up slowly, curling his legs up in front of him. “I want you to let me in, Gabriel,” he said softly. 

“Why? Why does it matter to you?” he asked tiredly. 

Sam knew that he wasn’t going to get a better chance and if he didn’t say something now, he would never get this far again. He was going to have to take a chance. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment to gather the necessary courage. “Because I…I love you, Gabriel,” he said in barely a whisper. 

Gabriel resisted the urge to roll his eyes…barely. “You don’t even know me, Sam. You said so yourself.”

“I know enough,” Sam assured him. “I’ve gotten enough glimpses behind the masks to know that much, but I want to know more. I want to know YOU Gabriel.” 

The archangel’s gaze was firmly fixed out the window. He wouldn’t even look at Sam. He couldn’t look at Sam. Part of him wanted to just fall in Sam’s arms and take everything the hunter was offering and never look back, but, “I’ve been broken before, Sam, and the…the THING I became…I just…I can’t do that again. I don’t…don’t know if I could come back next time. I just…can’t.”

He hadn’t left. He hadn’t laughed. He hadn’t said that he didn’t love Sam, and that was enough for right now. That was enough for Sam to fight. He reached out his hand to Gabriel’s cheek and gently turned his head so that he was looking at Sam, and the hunter nearly choked at the moisture in Gabriel’s eyes. “I won’t break you, Gabriel. I swear,” he vowed softly as he ran his thumb over the archangel’s cheekbone. “Just let me in,” he whispered. “Please.”

Gabriel was taken aback at the emotion he saw in the hunter’s eyes, and he couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Sam’s. The kiss was slow and sweet and full of promise; full of hope, and as his eyes closed, a single tear leaked out and was quickly swiped away by Sam’s thumb. When the kiss ended, Gabriel didn’t go far and he just rested his forehead against Sam’s and took a deep breath before he whispered, “I’ll try.” That was the best he could do right now. 

“That’s all I ask,” Sam whispered back. He pressed one more gentle kiss to the archangel’s lips before he laid down pulling Gabriel down next to him. 

Gabriel sighed as he rested his head on Sam’s shoulder. “You have to understand though, Sam. These masks…they have been a part of me for so long…it’s not gonna be easy.”

Sam gave a soft smile and rested his cheek against Gabriel’s head. “Nothing worth having ever is. We’ll work on it together.” 

“I can’t promise I’m not gonna get pissy about stupid shit. I’m gonna feel vulnerable and when I feel vulnerable I lash out and then you leave,” Gabriel said worriedly. He didn’t think he could handle going any further just to lose this. Hell he didn’t think he could handle losing this already and it had only been a few minutes. 

“I leave because I don’t want either of us to say something we can’t take back. I leave to give us a chance to cool down so we can come at things with clearer heads. I can’t promise I won’t do it again if I need to, but I can promise that I won’t stay gone. We’ll cool off, come back, and talk things out. Just like we’ve been doing. We can make this work, Gabe. We WILL make this work. I’m not giving up on us. Not for anything.”

“Good,” Gabriel said softly working up the nerve to say something he should have said when Sam did and when the words, “I love you, Sam,” finally fell from his lips they were so soft that Sam almost didn’t hear them. Almost. 

He put a finger under Gabriel’s chin and lifted his head enough that he could kiss him. “I love you too, Gabriel. Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one is a little short but that seemed like a good place to leave off. Next one will be up soon.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some disturbing content in this chapter. It's separated by warnings so you can skip it if you need to.

Sam and Gabriel just lay there for a while enjoying the closeness and being in each other’s arms, but they couldn’t stay there all day. “You wanna go take a walk on the beach?” Sam asked. “I need to stretch my legs.”

“Ooh. A nice romantic walk. How sweet,” Gabriel drawled before he winced and immediately said, “Sorry. Habit. Yeah. A walk sounds nice.”

Sam just rolled his eyes and pressed a quick kiss to Gabriel’s lips to let him know he was forgiven before climbing out of bed and pulling the archangel with him as they headed down, hand in hand. Once they were out on the beach, Sam wrapped an arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and pulled him close pressing a kiss to his temple. “I really do love you, you know,” he said happily. 

Gabriel just responded with a sigh. “I want to believe that. You have no idea how much I want to believe it,” Gabriel said in a rare bout of complete honesty. 

“But you don’t?” Sam surmised. 

“I just can’t get over the idea that you don’t know me. Not really,” Gabriel said sadly. 

Sam stopped them in their tracks and turned Gabriel to him before putting both of his hands on either side of Gabriel’s head and kissing him softly. “I know that you’re a good person. That you try to help people in your own irrepressible and often amusing way,” Sam said with a slight chuckle. “I know that you tried to help us stop the apocalypse twice before it started. You died to save me, and then saved me from falling in the cage. I know that you have been knocked around a lot in your long life, but you’re still here and you’re still fighting for what’s right, even when we disagree on what that is. I know that you’re strong. A lot stronger than you think you are, and despite what you may think, I know that you’re far braver than anyone gives you credit for. I know that you’re not perfect and you have your faults, and I love that about you as much as anything else. I know I still have a lot to learn, but we have eternity for that. I know enough to know that I don’t want to live it without you.”

“And if you don’t like what you learn?” Gabriel said turning his eyes down. “I’ve done a lot of things, Sam. Things that would make you see me as a monster again. There’s too much you don’t know.”

“We all have nasty pasts. Hell a year ago I was addicted to demon blood and starting the apocalypse. I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. None of it takes away from who you are now. And nothing I could learn will change what I already know,” Sam assured him. Gabriel still looked a little unsure. “You’ve been alive like a billion years, Gabriel. I don’t think I could ever know everything, and that doesn’t matter. I still love you, just the way you are.” Gabriel eyes were brighter, like he had more hope, but wasn’t completely convinced. “Ok how about this. How about you go ahead and tell me the worst of it and I’ll prove it won’t make a difference,” Sam suggested. 

Gabriel didn’t want to. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to admit, but he had to know. If Sam was gonna change his mind about all this, it needed to be now. Before he got in any deeper. “Can we walk while I talk. I can’t…” he couldn’t get any more words out, but Sam understood and started walking, taking Gabriel’s hand in his as he did for support. He just couldn’t look at Sam while he talked about this. He couldn’t bear to see the horror and disgust on the hunter’s face. Losing his love would be bad enough, watching it drain from his face would kill him. 

 

WARNING: DISTURBING CONTENT

 

“How much do you know of Loki’s early history?” Gabriel asked hoping that he could skip some of the story. He wasn’t sure how much had even survived through time. Needless to say, it wasn’t something he went looking for. 

“Not much. I know it was bloody and violent, but that’s about it,” Sam said squeezing Gabriel’s hand in reassurance. 

“It was…bad. I took sacrifices. A lot of them. Blood. Virginity. Everything. Not all of them adults either. Parents would sacrifice their children to me and I let them. I think the youngest was about five. I…I raped them and then bled them dry,” Gabriel’s voice choked off as Sam’s hand tightened around his. He could almost feel the disgust rolling off the hunter. He tried to pull away, but Sam pulled him back, letting go of his hand to wrap him in a tight hug. 

“It’s okay, Gabe. I’m still here. Keep going,” Sam whispered. It wasn’t okay. Not really. It was horrible and disgusting, but it was a long time ago. It wasn’t who Gabriel was anymore, and Sam could see that. He wasn’t going to hold it against him. 

Gabriel choked out a sob. “I…I liked the rush of power. It made me feel…strong. Alive. It was the only thing that made me feel alive. I…I still see their faces sometimes. Especially the children. I can’t…I’ll never make up for it…any of it…but I try anyway. Because I have to. Because if I stop…if I stop it will tear me apart.”

 

END OF WARNING

 

Sam could feel Gabriel’s tears on his neck where the archangel’s face was buried as his own tears fell on Gabriel’s head. He couldn’t imagine the guilt that Gabriel was carrying. He knew that it was justified guilt, just like the guilt that Sam himself carried was justified, but his actions thousands of years ago didn’t define him, any more than Sam’s mistakes defined him. “I know, Gabriel. I understand. I know the crushing weight of the guilt and the drive to do anything you can to fix whatever you can. To do enough good to make your life mean something again while knowing that no matter how much good you do, it will never erase the past, but you move on. You keep going because you have to. Because if you give up, then none of it means anything. I’ve been there, Gabriel. I AM there. I’m right there with you, and I’m not going anywhere. We’ll carry it together. All of it.”

Gabriel couldn’t even begin to name half of the emotions rolling through him at that moment, but all of them were so completely overwhelming and all he could think was that he needed to see. He needed to know that Sam would still be there. That Sam could see past all of that and still love him. He lifted his head and kissed Sam desperately, pulling him to the ground on the blanket that appeared behind him. As Sam settled on top of him, he pulled out of the kiss, propped up on his elbows and looked into Gabriel’s eyes. “Gabriel?” he asked hesitantly. This seemed like a rather odd time for a roll in the hay. 

“Please, Sam…I need…” he trailed off unable to put it into words, but Sam could see it in his eyes. He needed to know that he could still be loved. That he still mattered to someone. He needed to feel loved and wanted and Sam couldn’t not give him that. He lowered his lips and kissed Gabriel deeply as the archangel’s legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him down tighter and it wasn’t long before both of them were hard. Gabriel only paused for a second before he pressed a tube of lube into Sam’s hand. He had never bottomed before, but it seemed fitting this time. He wanted Sam to have all of him in every way he could. 

Sam pulled back and asked, “Are you sure?” He was a little nervous about this too. It was another new experience for him. Gabriel just nodded and pulled him back down for another kiss. Sam slicked up his fingers and as his hand moved down, Gabriel spread for him and he slid a finger in slowly. He’d felt Gabriel do this a couple times now, so he would try to do it right. He moved his finger around for a bit before he found the right spot to cause Gabriel to let out a keening moan as he arched his back and threw his head back. Sam started moving his finger in and out slowly, paying liberal attention to the sweet spot as his lips turned to Gabriel’s neck. “I love you,” he whispered in Gabriel’s ear as he sucked the lobe into his mouth. “Always.” 

“Sam…” Gabriel breathed out in a moan.

“Gabriel…” Sam whispered against his neck as he pressed a second finger in. “My Gabriel.”

“Yours,” Gabriel agreed. “Love you,” he panted out as his hands clutched at the hunter’s back and tangled in his hair. Gabriel hissed a little at the burn as Sam’s third finger entered him and Sam stilled. “Don’t stop Sammy…please…don’t stop…” Gabriel gasped, so Sam continued working Gabriel open as he trailed lips and tongue over Gabriel’s neck and throat. 

When Gabriel was as loose as he was going to get, Sam removed his fingers and lined his aching cock up, and lifted his head to look deep in Gabriel’s eyes, and whispered, “I love you,” one more time before capturing the archangel’s lips again as he slid in slowly moaning at the tight heat that was taking his breath away. He moved slowly, taking his time as he pressed soft, deep kisses to the lips beneath his, always short because he couldn’t breathe. It took a few tries before he got the angle right to hit Gabriel’s prostate, but once he did, he hit it on every stroke. 

He didn’t speed up until he felt like he couldn’t hold on much longer. He wanted to take his time and make sure Gabriel knew how loved he was. As he picked up the pace, he moved his hand to Gabriel’s cock, stroking in time with his thrusts and when he felt Gabriel spilling over his hand and the clenching around his length he was gone, crying Gabriel’s name as he had the most intense orgasm of his life. 

As he rode out the wave, he kissed Gabriel again, trying to transfer all of his feelings in that moment and when he was done, he pulled slowly out and rolled next to Gabriel, pulling the archangel firmly against him. “I’m yours Gabriel. Forever,” he assured him as Gabriel held him tightly, letting the silent tears fall. He finally believed that.


	17. Chapter 17

Once Gabriel managed to collect himself, and then try to let go of his embarrassment/anger/frustration at losing it like that in the first place, he loosened his grip on Sam. “Guess we kinda sidetracked our walk huh?” 

“I’m not complaining,” Sam said with a light chuckle. “Are you?” he asked trying to keep his insecurity out of his voice. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Like I would complain about that?” 

Sam laughed nervously and said, “Yeah. Okay. It’s just…that was a first for me and I wasn’t sure…”

“Don’t feel bad, Samsquatch. That was a first for me too. I definitely have no complaints though.”

“Wait…it was?” Sam asked incredulously. “You mean…you never…”

“Nope. Never bottomed before,” Gabriel finished his sentence and answered his question at once. 

“Why not? And why now?” Sam asked, struck with the enormity of what had just happened. 

“Never trusted anyone enough. Never cared enough. Never wanted to submit to anyone else’s control. Take your pick,” Gabriel said easily trying not to get all prickly about being analyzed. He would have to get used to it. 

Sam swallowed the lump in his throat as he leaned up on his elbow before kissing Gabriel earnestly. “Thank you,” he said in barely a whisper. 

Some emotion he couldn’t name settled over the archangel and it made him uncomfortable so he did the only thing he knew to do in those situations. Deflect. “So you still need to stretch your legs?” 

“Gabriel…” Sam said pointedly. 

“Please, Sam?” Gabriel asked hoping that Sam would get the hint. Sam sighed with disappointment but got up and reached down a hand to pull Gabriel up. Once they were on their feet and Gabriel was in a less vulnerable position, he felt the need to explain. He hated the disappointment from the hunter. “I’m just not good with thanks, Sam. Or compliments. I never know how to take it and that makes me uncomfortable and then I fall back on sarcasm. It’s not a matter of hiding this time. It’s just me.”

“Yeah. Okay. I can understand that,” Sam admitted. It seemed that he would have to stop assuming the worst too. “But I have every intention of getting you more comfortable with that stuff, because I’m not gonna stop thanking you or complimenting you.”

Gabriel wasn’t sure what to say to that so he just settled for a shrug, as Sam took his hand again while they walked. It was a comfortable silence for a while, before Sam breeched it with a question. “You said you were broken before. Was it Kali?” he asked curiously. 

Gabriel snorted derisively. “Not hardly. She’s not exactly the lovable type.” He paused for a minute before saying, “It was my family.”

“What happened?” He had been curious about this story since he found out who Gabriel was and could help asking. 

“Don’t you think we’ve dredged up enough painful memories for one day,” Gabriel said irritably. 

“Sorry,” Sam said quickly. “You’re right. Maybe some other time.”

“Maybe,” Gabriel emphasized. 

Sam pulled on Gabriel’s hand and wrapped his arm over Gabriel’s shoulder, hand resting on the archangel’s waist. “So why don’t you tell me some fun stories. You must have a ton of those,” Sam suggested in an effort to lighten the mood. It seemed to have worked, because before long they were both doubled over in laughter as Loki told a long and convoluted story that involved Thor in drag almost marrying a giant and that set the tone for the remainder of the day. Once they got tired of walking, Gabriel expanded one of the beach chair so that they could both fit and they just talked and had fun and told stories until well after the sun had set. 

When Sam started yawning, Gabriel smiled and got up, reaching out a hand for the hunter, and they headed back towards the house and when Sam fell into bed, he pulled Gabriel with him. “I know you don’t sleep and you’ll probably be bored so you don’t have to stay all night, but maybe just until I fall asleep?” Sam asked hopefully. Gabriel smiled happily and pressed a gentle kiss to the hunter’s lips before snuggling down into his arms. Like he was even gonna think about going anywhere. 

Gabriel rested in the warmth of Sam’s arms as Sam slept, and he let his mind wander as was becoming habit while Sam was sleeping. He had never imagined this when Sam woke up this morning, but he felt like the luckiest being in the universe right now. It was a few hours before any thoughts more substantial than just contentment entered his mind and he realized that he had screwed up. Big time. He would have to come clean with Sam tomorrow. He didn’t know if their burgeoning relationship could handle it if he carried out the remainder of his plan. It was time for an about-face, and hope it didn’t blow up on him too horribly. That he wasn’t too late to fix it. 

Gabriel didn’t rest very well for the remainder of the night, worry taking over his thoughts. He got a brief respite though when, as the sun started coming up, he felt Sam’s hard cock pressing forward against his ass as the hunter’s arms tightened around him. Gabriel could tell he was still mostly asleep by the sounds that Sam was making, but it only took a few minutes for him to wake up enough to start pressing kisses and nips over Gabriel’s neck and the back of his shoulders, and his hands started roaming. Gabriel pressed himself back on the hunter’s erection and he moaned as Sam’s hand found his and started stroking slowly. 

Sam’s other hand ran over Gabriel’s hip and down his thigh before coming back up and squeezing the archangel’s ass, separating his cheeks enough that Sam was sliding up between them. “Can I?” Sam asked breathlessly as his hand kept kneading Gabriel’s ass as one of his fingers teased lightly at his entrance. 

“Please,” Gabriel breathed out and Sam immediately pushed his suddenly slick finger past the tight ring of muscle and Gabriel pressed himself back harder on it, still feeling Sam’s leaking cock rubbing over his other cheek and lower back. Sam was taking his time and opening Gabriel up slowly and Gabriel let him. He couldn’t shake the fear that this would be the last time, his last chance, and he wasn’t going to rush anything, despite how badly he needed to feel Sam inside him. 

“God, Gabriel,” Sam whispered as he pressed a second finger in, still peppering the archangel’s neck and shoulder with kisses, “I love you…so much.”

“Mmmm,” Gabriel moaned rolling his hips back onto the hunter. “Love you Sammy…never…never forget that.”

“Never,” Sam assured him as he pressed a third finger in, starting to lose his patience with slow. When he felt that Gabriel was ready, he shifted them so that Gabriel was on his stomach on the bed, and gave him a second to get his knees under him before Sam lined himself up and slid in slowly, choking off his own orgasm as he did so. No way was he gonna let himself blow so soon. He didn’t think he would ever get over the feeling of being buried balls deep in Gabriel. Sam reached down and pulled Gabriel up, holding the archangel’s tightly against him so they were both on their knees and he resumed his attentions to Gabriel’s neck and shoulders as one hand splayed over Gabriel’s chest and the other his stomach. 

With Sam’s hand spread over his stomach, Gabriel felt that old insecurity from the first night they were here creeping back so he did the only thing he could do. He took Sam’s hand and slid it lower so that the hunter was stroking his cock instead. It was teasingly slow, and he knew then that Sam was going to drag this out as long as he could, but he would get no complaints from Gabriel. 

The first time Sam’s thumb had brushed over Gabriel’s nipple it had been an accident, but the needy whimper it pulled from the archangel, had Sam trying it again, and then he started pinching and twisting and Gabriel was pushing himself back harder and harder against Sam’s quickening thrusts. “Oh…god, Sam…don’t…don’t stop…so close…” Gabriel gasped out as Sam’s pace became frantic. He was having trouble holding on too. Sam came first though, biting Gabriel’s shoulder as he did and that pushed Gabriel over the edge with him. 

Sam sat back on his heels, pulling Gabriel with him so that the archangel was leaning back against him. His lower hand, again, came up to rest on Gabriel’s stomach for a moment before Gabriel put his own hand over Sam’s and threaded their fingers together, and pulled it tighter around him, and moving it up higher. It dawned on Sam that it was the second time Gabriel had moved Sam’s hand from his stomach, and wondered if there was something about that, before pushing it out of his mind for the moment. Now wasn’t the time to bring up any mythical insecurities the archangel might have, and even if it were, Sam wanted to be sure he wasn’t reading too much into it first. Instead he just took that hand and brought it up to run through Gabriel’s sweat-slick hair as he pressed another loving kiss to his lover’s neck. “I could totally get used to waking up with you,” he said contentedly. 

“I hope so,” Gabriel said, trying to keep the worry out of his voice, and apparently he did a fairly decent job of it since Sam didn’t say anything about it. They sat like that for a few more minutes before the hunter slowly got up, pressed a quick kiss to the archangel’s lips and headed for the bathroom, completely oblivious to the turmoil churning beneath the surface.


	18. Chapter 18

Sam noticed Gabriel’s silence as they headed down for breakfast, but he wasn’t sure whether to say anything about it or not. It was an improvement over the usual masks he wore, but it seemed like there was something on his mind. Something heavy. Before he could make up his mind to ask, Gabriel took the reins. “We should go check in on your brother again.”

“Why?” Sam asked suspiciously. “It’s only been a few days.”

“Actually…” Gabriel swallowed audibly. “Um…”

“Gabriel…” Sam said warningly. 

“Well the thing is…this is kind of another dimension and…well…time works differently here…”

“How long has it been?” Sam asked darkly. 

“I mean…it’s not as bad as the time discrepancy in other dimensions…but…” he continued babbling seeming not to have heard Sam. 

“Gabriel!” Sam said sharply and waited until Gabriel stopped talking and looked at him. “How. Long.” He ground out. 

“A little over a year,” Gabriel said in a small voice. 

“A YEAR!?” Sam yelled. “When were you going to tell me?” 

“I’m telling you now,” Gabriel pointed out. 

“No. When we came here. You must have had a plan. When were you planning to tell me?” Sam asked harshly. 

“I…I was…” Gabriel took a deep breath and steeled himself for the explosion he knew was coming. “We were gonna stay here a year,” he said barely audible. 

“A year by the time here?” Sam accused and Gabriel nodded. The hunter did some quick math in his head. “So once everyone I’ve ever known and loved is dead?” Gabriel nodded again, unable to even look at Sam. He could hear the venom dripping from his voice. He didn’t need to see it reflected in his face as well. “YOU…” Sam bit back his words with a growl, spun on his heel and stormed up the stairs, slamming the door to the bedroom. He had very nearly said something that he couldn’t take back. A lot of somethings he couldn’t take back. If he was gonna throw this relationship in the toilet, it wasn’t going to be in a fit of anger though. 

Gabriel fought back his tears as he sank onto the couch and put his head in his hands. Sam had said he would always come back and talk things out, but facing it now, he had trouble believing it. He knew he had screwed up. He hoped he would at least get some points for honesty. He could have lied when Sam asked what the original plan was. He could have even done so convincingly, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to lie to Sam. Not now. Part of him was wishing he had though. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad if he had. He could just imagine the words that Sam had stopped, and he couldn’t help but wonder if Sam would still say them when he had calmed down. If this was as unforgivable as he feared it was. 

Sam paced angrily in the room as he tried to calm down. How dare Gabriel do this to him. He was just going to let him sit on a beach for a fucking year while everyone he ever knew got old and died, and Sam would never have known. He would have gone back expecting them to still be there, but almost a whole damn century would have passed him right by. He managed to not break anything this time, but it was a near thing. It was nearly an hour before his anger cooled enough for him to sit heavily on the edge of the bed and take a deep breath as he started trying to think it through. 

Yeah, Gabriel had been completely in the wrong, but that was before they were together, and he did tell him now. He had brought it up freely, or Sam would never have known. He didn’t lie to him, despite how damning the truth was. He knew that to Gabriel, sitting out a century wouldn’t make much difference, and he had seen countless humans come and go, so it was all old news for him, but Gabriel knew…Sam was positive that Gabriel knew full well how much it would hurt him to suddenly be thrust back into the world with everyone gone. Why would he do that? Even when he considered that they weren’t together at the time, it was still unnecessarily cruel. Something that he wouldn’t even do to an enemy and they had at least been friendly then. 

He turned things over in his head for a good long while and only when he was sure that he could have this conversation without losing his temper did he leave the room. He would hear Gabriel out for one reason and one reason only. The fact that he had offered the information openly and honestly. That earned him the chance to explain. He headed down the stairs to find Gabriel sitting silently on the couch, head in his hands. Sam went and sat down on the couch as Gabriel started to speak. “Sam, I’m…”

“Don’t,” Sam cut him off sharply. He didn’t want to hear any apologies. Not yet. Not until he understood. “Just tell me why?” 

“Because I was a selfish bastard,” Gabriel said sadly.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Because I didn’t want to spend the next however many decades following Dean Winchester around,” Gabriel admitted. 

“I had already decided to let him live his life without me,” Sam pointed out. 

“You would have changed your mind.”

Sam couldn’t argue with that. Hell he was already changing his mind since Gabriel had mentioned it. Now that he knew how long it had been for Dean. “So…what? You wanted to make sure that when I did it would be too late?” he asked incredulously. Gabriel couldn’t do anything but nod. “And did you even think about how I would feel?” 

“I told myself that you would get over it.”

“So you would rather put up with me being pissed for however many decades instead?” Sam asked in disbelief. He knew his brother could be a pain sometimes, but at least they could have had some fun, once Dean got over Gabriel’s presence anyway. 

“You…” Gabriel stopped himself, knowing just how bad it was going to sound and not wanting to start the death knell of their relationship. 

“I what?” Sam asked coldly.

“You don’t hold grudges,” Gabriel said wincing and biting his lower lip. 

“You…” Sam bit his tongue and got up and started pacing the living room as he tried to get his temper back under control. He didn’t want to walk out twice in the same argument, but man was he pissed. He took a few deep breaths before he said what he needed to say, minus a few expletives and rude suggestions. “You think because I’m a forgiving person that it doesn’t matter how much I’m hurt because I’ll ‘get over it’ and ‘won’t hold a grudge’?” he snapped. 

“No!” Gabriel protested with the most volume he’d had since this started. “Not at all. Not now. Not even then really. It did matter. It…it would always have mattered just…just not as much as what I wanted.” Gabriel waited with bated breath while Sam paced. He could see the simmering under the surface. “It’s just the opposite though,” he whispered. 

“What?” Sam asked not sure if he heard and/or understood correctly. 

“It’s just the opposite,” Gabriel said a little louder. “Your hurt matters so much more because you forgive so easily.”

Sam started to soften at that. Not a lot, but a little. Enough to ask. “So what changed? Why now?” 

“Now…now I want you to be happy more than I want me to be happy,” Gabriel said softly turning to look out the window so that Sam wouldn’t see the tears welling up in his eyes. 

As such, he missed the way the hunter seemed to deflate at those words as all the anger drained out of him. The hurt and betrayal was still there. It wouldn’t go away so easily. But he wasn’t angry anymore. He plopped back down on the couch and said firmly. “Okay. Here’s what we are going to do,” and god help Gabriel if he resisted in any way, he didn’t say. “First you are going to take us somewhere that time works normally, and then I need some time to think and you are going to give me as much space as you can, given the bond, to do so.”

The room shifted around them and Sam found himself sitting on a different couch in a different room. “So we are back in the normal dimension now? And time is going normally?” he asked pointedly. 

“Not exactly…” Gabriel started. 

“Gabriel!” Sam snapped unable to believe that he was still pulling this crap. 

“Wait! Just…just hear me out a second,” he pleaded and when Sam just glared at him he continued. “This dimension is the opposite of the other one. Time doesn’t pass at all while we’re here. So…so you can…can take as much time as you need to think and not have to worry about missing anything.” When he saw the hunter start to relax, Gabriel reached out and took his hand. “I’m sorry, Sam. Really.”

“I know,” was all Sam said, not responding at all to Gabriel’s touch or looking at the archangel. 

Gabriel swallowed around the lump in his throat and managed to say, “The kitchen is stocked. Movies and video games are under the television. Bedroom. Library. Lounge. Study,” he pointed out each room as he listed them and he got up and headed towards the last one. He had done some rearranging as they’d arrived so the whole house and immediate area surrounding it would be close enough to the study that the bond wouldn’t be an issue. “That’s…that’s where I’ll be if…if you want to…to talk,” he quickly headed into his self-appointed isolation before he lost the battle with his tears.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tissue warning. Have them ready. You'll need them.

Sam determinedly swatted away the desire to go after Gabriel and make him feel better. He would not pity Gabriel in this. No way. This was his fault to begin with. Sam felt his irritability start to rise as some part of him still wanted to comfort Gabriel and tell him that everything would be okay. It wasn’t okay damnit. He slammed the cupboards harder than necessary as he looked for something to eat before dropping to the couch with a huff and turning on the television, cranking the volume all the way up. He had no idea what was on the screen, all he knew was that the silence had been too deafening. It made Gabriel’s absence all the more profound and he hated how much that hurt. 

He forced himself to remember what Gabriel’s plan had been. How devastated he would have been if Gabriel had carried it out. The horrendous justifications that Gabriel had given. Every time he thought about the fact that Gabriel was going to do it because Sam would forgive him before long anyway, it just made Sam even more determined to hold onto this anger, this betrayal. Gabriel had saved him from hell, bound him, and then set out to put him in a different kind of hell for no better reason than his own convenience. 

It might have been easier if there had been some kind of danger to Gabriel. Some kind of pain that he was trying to avoid, but no. He hadn’t even tried to talk to Sam about it. Sam was a reasonable guy. He would have been amenable to some sort of compromise. He would have understood Gabriel’s desire to do his own thing too. And Sam knew that Gabriel KNEW that. He had been counting on Sam’s agreeable nature after all. It was easier for Gabriel to just rip away every facet of his life than to work out a fair deal. 

It might have been easier, too, if they had been enemies when Gabriel had concocted that plan. If Sam had still been trying to kill him and Gabriel had still been pissed about the apocalypse, but they had made their peace. They may have still argued, but they had been friends of a sort. If Gabriel could treat his friends that way, then what did that mean for them now. 

Sam stomped irritably around the house for days, stewing in silence, but as he did, little things kept catching his attention. The fact that the kitchen had enough food for a month. At least, and may have had more if it wasn’t filled to the brim. That told him that Gabriel expected this to be a long process and was prepared for it. He noticed that Gabriel had shut himself up in another small room, less than a week after escaping from the small room where he sat at Sam’s bedside for a month, and apparently was prepared to stay there for a while. The fact that all the food in the house was the healthy stuff that Sam liked. There was an ample amount of all of his favorites. He noticed that Gabriel hadn’t come out of the room he had stuck himself in, and Sam would have noticed since he slept on the couch. He didn’t want to go near Gabriel’s bed right now. 

Sam caught his mind straying more and more often to the archangel. The words echoing in his mind were less the ‘you don’t hold grudges’ and more of the ‘I want you to be happy more than I want me to be happy’. Less of the ‘you would get over it’ and more of the ‘your hurt matters so much more because you’re so forgiving’. He knew then that he would forgive Gabriel. He just wasn’t quite ready yet. When he could think about it without getting angry, he would be ready. He didn’t think the hurt and betrayal would ever go away, but when they were far enough away that they weren’t tearing him apart every time he thought about it, he would be ready. He was almost there, but he couldn’t go to Gabriel until he got there. They both deserved better than that. He needed to get his own head straight before he could fix anything with them, so he stayed away. 

They had been there for five days, before Sam felt ready to face Gabriel and put this back together. He took a deep breath and knocked lightly on the door before creaking it open to see Gabriel hastily wiping his eyes as he jumped up off the couch. “Gabriel…” he started to say, but the archangel cut him off. 

“Can I just say something first?” he asked and when Sam nodded, Gabriel said, “I thought of a way to fix this. All of it. I can take us back to that first time we met. Before the bond so you’ll be free. And you’ll still know everything you do now so things’ll be better. I almost did it a few times, but figured you’d want to be consulted.”

“What’s the catch?” Sam asked suspiciously. It couldn’t be that easy. Not that he planned on letting Gabriel go of course, but the chance to right the wrongs was tempting. 

“Nothing too bad. It would take all of my grace to do it, but that’s okay. I’m good with that.”

“So what? You would be human?” Sam asked. 

“No,” Gabriel said looking down for a minute, before steeling himself and looking back up at the hunter. “An archangel can’t live without their grace.”

“So you would die? And you’re okay with that?” Sam asked incredulously, his voice climbing an octave at the thought. 

“Well yeah, but it’s not that bad. I have died before you know. I could time it so that we got there right when Dean stabbed me, so you wouldn’t have anything to explain if you didn’t want to, and it would be easier than…” he cut himself off before finishing with, “It would be easier that way.”

“Easier than what?” Sam asked. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Gabriel said not looking at him again. 

“Gabriel. Don’t do that. Not now. Please. Easier than what?” 

“Than being broken again. I don’t…I don’t want you to live with this because you have no other choice. Because we’re stuck together either way. I…I can’t live with that. Not now that I know…know what it’s like…” Gabriel couldn’t say any more as he stood there waiting for the hammer to fall. 

Sam was so caught off guard by the idea that he had no words. He couldn’t say that he didn’t consider Gabriel’s offer either. He could stop the apocalypse before it started. He could save so many lives. He could save Dean from having to suffer hell. But he would lose Gabriel. Forever. The immortal archangel would be dead and gone and how many lives would be lost that he wouldn’t be there to save. That they wouldn’t be there to save. He realized though that all of that was just justifications to try and hide the fact that he was selfish too. None of those lives were more important to him than the one standing in front of him. He took three long strides to get to Gabriel, wrapping an arm around his waist to pull him close while the other hand went to Gabriel’s cheek and he kissed him with all the love and devotion and desperation he could manage.

Gabriel choked back a sob even as he kissed Sam back, wrapping his arms around the hunter’s neck and pressing himself as tightly as he could manage against him. He didn’t even care if this was a goodbye kiss. If this was one last gift before Sam accepted his offer. It didn’t matter. This was everything. They didn’t break apart until the need for air was too great and Sam didn’t realize what Gabriel was thinking until he asked, “So are we…going back?” 

“Not a fucking chance,” Sam growled possessively as he kissed Gabriel again, this time shorter since they hadn’t really caught their breath yet, but no less intense. He knew that Gabriel had seen him considering and knew that he had to explain. “Yes, I considered it…briefly…but only because of the lives it could save, but losing you…that’s not an option. Ever. And maybe I’m selfish, but I don’t care. You matter more to me than the whole damn world.” He could feel the tension fading from Gabriel as the archangel relaxed in his arms. “I love you, Gabriel. Forever. But if you ever pull something like this again…”

“I won’t. I swear,” Gabriel assured him. 

“Good,” Sam said with finality, closing the book on the matter for good as he pulled Gabriel in for another kiss, before whispering in his ear, “Now let’s go try out that bed hmm?”


	20. Chapter 20

Before Sam could register the change, they were standing in the bedroom. For the first time since they’d gotten together, they were starting from fully clothed, and Sam hoped that Gabriel didn’t just vanish their clothes again. He was relishing the chance to undress his angel. Sam kissed him deeply, before his hands moved to the buttons on Gabriel’s shirt and started undoing them slowly. Gabriel waited until Sam was sliding his shirt off his shoulder’s before returning the favor, getting the hint that Sam wanted to do this the human way. 

Gabriel was too overwhelmed with how lucky he was feeling to protest the pace, and just relaxed and enjoyed undressing each other. Once it was all unbuttoned, Gabriel slid Sam’s shirt off his shoulders before running his hands down over the hunter’s chest and stomach and sides, exploring everything he could reach as his lips moved to Sam’s neck. Sam was the one getting impatient this time and it didn’t take long before he was fumbling with the button on Gabriel’s pants. 

Gabriel finished stripping them both and lowered Sam down to the bed as his lips trailed lower, down over Sam’s collarbones and then to his chest, pausing pay attention to the hunter’s nipples, and by the time he was kissing and licking his way down Sam’s stomach, the hunter was a mass of whimpers and moans as he knew what was coming and couldn’t wait. There was a split second hesitation that Sam just barely managed to notice, before all thought of it flew from his mind as he was engulfed in the archangel’s warm mouth and his hand tightened in Gabriel’s hair as he choked out a moan. 

Gabriel hummed around Sam’s length as he slid a slick finger into the hunter’s ass going straight for the sweet spot. He took his time, never letting Sam get too close to coming, but lavishing all the attention he could on the hunter, studiously ignoring his own aching erection. He ignored it right up until Sam cried out, “Oh God! Gabriel! Please!” and then he lined up and slid in slowly, capturing the hunter in a searing kiss and allowing him to taste himself in Gabriel’s mouth. Sam lifted his hips, pulling Gabriel in even deeper and they both moaned, not breaking the kiss. 

“God…Gabe…not gonna…last long…” Sam panted. With all the attention he had gotten before after having been dry for five days, he was struggling to hold on. Gabriel was in the same boat so had no problem picking up the pace as he reached a hand between them and started pumping Sam’s cock in time with his rapidly turning frantic thrusts. They came at the same time, each crying out the other’s name. 

Gabriel slid to Sam’s side and the hunter held him tightly so that Gabriel was half on top of him, head nestled in the crook of Sam’s neck as he sighed happily. They both spent a little while just enjoying the moment before Sam started a conversation they needed to have. “You were right about one thing,” he told him. 

“What’s that?” Gabriel asked. 

“I have changed my mind about Dean.”

“I know,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly trying to keep all emotion out of his voice, lest it set Sam off again. 

“But I meant what I said before too. You are more important to me than anything else in the world, and I get that you don’t want to spend all your time with him, but maybe a compromise?”

“What kind of compromise?” Gabriel asked curiously. 

“Well it’s about time the umbilical cord was cut and Dean has a family now, and I have you, so we can be like normal brothers and get together once a week for a nice dinner or a barbeque or ball game and such,” Sam suggested. 

Gabriel sighed with relief. “Yeah. Once a week is a good. Maybe holidays and special occasions and stuff too. I’m not gonna promise a good attitude. That will depend on how he acts, but I won’t start anything. I promise.”

“That’s all I ask. He’s going to have to accept you in my life or we may have to rethink the whole thing anyway.” He realized how that sounded and rushed to clarify. “With him not with us, I mean.”

Gabriel smiled. “I knew what you meant, but thanks,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to the hunter’s neck. “So you wanna go now?” 

“Nah. Let’s take a little more advantage of being outside of time. I’m not done with you yet. We can go tomorrow,” Sam said pulling Gabriel in for another kiss. 

When they finally climbed out of bed the next afternoon, by the false time in the cottage, Sam asked, “So what time is it out there?” 

“Not sure. Can’t really track it that exact. How’s about we just pop out and take a look then we can decide what to do from there?” Gabriel suggested. 

“Yeah okay. So you said it was a little over a year. How exact can you track it?” 

“One year, one month, and four days give or take. The island is seven years to a month.”

“Just seven? Why not ten? A nice even number.”

“The bigger the time discrepancy the more power it takes and being cut off from heaven I’m not unlimited. Seven was the most I could do without tiring myself out too much.”

“So you went to all that trouble just to keep from spending time with Dean?” Sam asked trying not to let it annoy him all over again. 

“No!” Gabriel said quickly. “Not at all. I’ve had that place pretty much since I left heaven. It was easier to hide out there until they stopped looking for me and I’ve hidden out there a few times since. Spent most of the dark ages there for example. It was just there and easy to get to this time.”

Sam just nodded. That did make it a little better. Knowing that it wasn’t created just to hurt him, but was just handy at the time. Gabriel realized that conversation was over and held out his hand for Sam to take him back to the real world. They appeared on the street outside where Dean was living and it seemed to be mid-morning, but one look in the house showed that there was someone else living there now. “They must have moved. Can you find them?” Sam asked. 

Gabriel closed his eyes and tried. “Sorry. No can do. Dean must still be warded and I’m not familiar enough with the woman or kid to track them like that.”

“Oh well. Guess we do it the hard way. Can you get me to a library?” 

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Gabriel said cheerfully and went to the one he was most familiar with, having been there most recently, at the college in Ohio where they met. 

Sam recognized it right away and slid an arm around the archangel, pressing a kiss to his temple, before he headed over to the computers. He knew that Dean would be flying under the radar and it took him a minute to remember Lisa’s last name so that he could search. He actually started by hacking into school records, since that would be the easiest way. There were more than a few Benjamin Braeden’s though so he had to narrow it down. Adding Lisa’s name as mother narrowed it down to only three, and he didn’t know if Dean would be listed as a contact and even if he were, if he would be going by his real name, so he just looked for those who had moved in the last year and was left with only one. Now that he had the town he looked up the directory to get the address, and told it to Gabriel and they headed there. 

Once they arrived on the street, Sam dropped Gabriel’s hand. When he noticed the hurt look on Gabriel’s face he said, “Just until I tell him. Better to tell him than just hit him over the head with it as soon as he sees us.” Gabriel just nodded. It made sense. Hopefully Sam would tell him quickly and not put it off. 

They headed up to the door and rang the bell. Lisa answered and said, “Sam,” in greeting and gave him a curt nod. Before Sam had a chance to be confused about her not being surprised to see him, he was confused even more by her question of, “Where’s Dean? And who’s this? Another hunter?” 

“This is Gabriel,” Sam said getting the easy part out of the way first, before addressing the confusion. “You don’t know where Dean is?”


	21. Chapter 21

“He was with you. Doing some kind of errand for Bobby,” she said narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Sam seemed different than he had last time she’d seen him. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but now that she was looking he didn’t give her that creeped out feeling he usually did. 

“But…Bobby’s dead. I saw him die,” Sam said completely lost. “And I haven’t seen Dean since Stull. Gabriel?” he turned to the archangel hoping for some answers. 

“No clue kiddo. I’m just as lost as you are,” he said with a shrug. 

“Could you have maybe brought us to an alternate reality on accident or something?” Sam asked grasping at straws. 

“No. I would definitely know if we were in a different reality,” Gabriel told him. 

“Wait…” Lisa said as if something had struck her. “Gabriel…the archangel?” There was no other explanation, with that name and talking about different realities. 

“Bingo,” Gabriel said with a charming smile. 

Before they could get side-tracked, Sam clarified, “You said they were on an errand for Bobby?” 

“That’s what he told me,” she said with a shrug not taking wide eyes off the archangel in her midst. 

“Maybe we should talk to Bobby, see if we can figure out what’s going on here,” Sam suggested before a thought struck him. “Wait…you don’t think…from the cage…”

“No,” Gabriel said. “No way. Your soul is clearly in this body and no being would ever be stupid enough to let a body walk around without a soul. Not even a demon would be so reckless, even if they had the power to pull the copy out of the cage.”

“Wait, so the Sam I know doesn’t have a soul?” Lisa asked alarmed. Maybe that was why he gave her the creeps so badly, but what did that mean for Dean out there with him. She knew that Dean had felt something off about him too. 

“We don’t know anything yet,” Gabriel tried to soothe her. “I’m completely lost here, but even if that is the case I’m sure Deano is safe. There would be nothing to gain by harming him.” He turned back to Sam. “We need to talk to your old guy,” he told him before looking back to Lisa. “Do me a favor doll and don’t give Deano a heads-up. We don’t want to stir any pots that don’t need stirring just yet. I’ll make sure you get an update as soon as this is figured out.” 

Sam was glad Gabriel was taking control of this situation because he wouldn’t even have known where to begin. He could see that relief reflected in Lisa’s face too as Gabriel took his hand and they disappeared. 

When they reappeared on Bobby’s front porch, Sam said, “Okay. Just. Be careful. Bobby’s really jumpy and not a big fan of yours.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I think I can take care of myself Sammykins.”

Sam wasn’t entirely comfortably with how at ease Gabriel was in this situation, but there was nothing for it. He raised his hand and knocked. Bobby opened the door and glared suspiciously at Sam. “And how the hell are you not on a plane over the Atlantic right now?” Then he noticed Gabriel standing slightly behind Sam with his casually amused mask firmly in place and growled. “You!” 

Sam saw the blood coming from his hand just in time to yell, “NO!” and shove the old hunter back away from the angel-banishing sigil. “Little help here, Gabe?” he asked as he struggled with the hunter while Gabriel just stared at the sigil with a look of horror on his face. 

At Sam’s entreaty though, he replaced his masks and snapped his fingers and Bobby was sitting behind the desk, far from the sigil and frozen in place so he couldn’t make another one. “We’ll let you up once you hear us out,” Sam promised him, knowing how much Bobby hated feeling weak. 

“Then talk,” the old man growled heatedly, glaring at Gabriel, thinking this was some kind of trick of his. 

Sam was the one who spoke though. He knew he needed to explain their presence before Bobby would give them any answers about the supposed other Sam, so he told him what happened, with one minor change. He worried that Bobby and Dean wouldn’t understand, but it didn’t really make a difference. “Gabriel was resurrected just before Stull. He switched me with a clone that Lucifer rode down to hell, but apparently my soul was pretty weak because of Lucifer so I was unconscious for a long time while Gabriel tried to fix me. He ended up having to bind his grace to my soul to keep me here. I’ve only been awake for a few days, so I have no idea what’s going on, but when we stopped to see Lisa, she said that Dean was with me, running some kind of errand for you, and you’re gonna have to tell me how you’re alive after I saw you die, but anyway, now we’re here trying to figure out what’s going on.”

Bobby nodded tersely and Gabriel snapped his fingers and released him, watching warily to make sure he didn’t go for the sigil again. Sam saw that and remembered the look of horror that crossed Gabriel’s face before. “Out of curiosity, what would have happened if he’d hit the sigil?” Sam asked. 

“You don’t want to know,” Gabriel said still watching warily, but Sam just stared at him until he gave a heavy sigh. “It would have blasted me away in pieces, like usual, but by the time I had put myself back together it would have been too late. The separation from the bond would have killed you and then I would be dead too.” Sam paled at that and wanted nothing more than to take the archangel in his arms to reassure him they were both okay, but he knew that would make things more difficult at the moment. 

While this side conversation was going on, Bobby was watching them just as warily as Gabriel was watching him. He, like everyone else, had picked up on something off about Sam, but couldn’t put his finger on what it was. This Sam though…this was the Sam he knew, and something told him that this insane story was somehow true and there was another Sam walking around out there. A wrong Sam. Still. It wouldn’t do to get complacent. Bobby handed Sam a shot of holy water which he downed and then a silver knife which he drew across his forearm before Gabriel grabbed it, running a finger over the cut and healing it. “The other Sam passed the tests too,” Bobby pointed out suspiciously. 

Gabriel started to open his mouth, but Sam cut him off. It would be better if he did the talking for now. Gabriel just huffed and walked over to lean against the back wall arms crossed as Sam talked to his surrogate father. “Why don’t you tell us what happened and we’ll see if we can figure out what’s going on.”

“Best I know, something or someone pulled you out of the pit as soon as you went in, and you been walking around hunting and who knows what else ever since,” Bobby said gruffly. Gabriel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. So much for no one being so stupid. Sam looked back at him alarmed, getting the implications as well. “What?” Bobby asked noticing the reactions. When they both hesitated to answer, Bobby said, “So help me if somebody don’t start talking…”

“Apparently the body that fell into the pit was what was rescued, but the one with my soul has been with Gabriel…” Sam trailed off letting Bobby put the pieces together. 

“So that Sam out there ain’t got no soul?” he asked incredulously. When the other two nodded, he sank back into the chair. “Balls.”

“Okay, so what do we do?” Sam asked Gabriel, hoping he had some ideas. 

“You said they’re on a plane?” Gabriel asked Bobby. 

“Yeah. Headed to Scotland.”

“What’s in Scotland?” Gabriel asked at the same time as Sam asked, “Dean’s on a plane?” 

“Crowley’s bones. Gonna use them as a bargaining chip to get my damn soul back from the slimy little weasel,” Bobby answered. 

“I can get Crowley to give up your soul. Save the bargaining chip. We’ll intercept them when they land, assuming you know what time that is, and get rid of the spare,” Gabriel said easily. 

“By get rid of, you mean…” Sam let Gabriel fill in the blanks. 

“A body walking around without a soul is…well…a disaster is about the nicest thing I can say. It’s not even alive. Not really. It just thinks it is.”

“It thinks it’s me,” Sam pointed out. He didn’t know how comfortable he was with Gabriel killing some version of him. “Couldn’t we…I don’t know…split my soul between us or something?” 

Gabriel snorted. “What, you want a living horcrux, Voldemort?” Sam couldn’t help the slight twitch of his lips at the joke, despite the fact that the situation was about the farthest thing from funny it could be. “Doesn’t work that way kiddo. Sorry. One soul in one piece. That’s all you get. And even I can’t create a soul for it to use.”

“Still. It’d be like you’re killing me. He would still have all my memories and thoughts I would assume, if he’s with Dean,” Sam pointed out. 

“IT,” Gabriel emphasized, “will have your memories, sure. It has your mind, but not your heart. It can’t even comprehend emotion so all of the memories it has would be stripped of all feeling. It’s essentially a machine. You can tell it things, but it will never feel anything. And it’s far more dangerous than you seem to realize.”

“Dangerous how?” Bobby asked, narrowing his eyes. 

“Without feelings, without a soul, it would just look for the easiest way to do something. The most efficient course of action, no matter the consequences. He would dangle a little girl as bait for a hungry werewolf if he thought that was the easiest way to get the werewolf to come, and then wait until the werewolf was distracted by its meal to strike. He wouldn’t even hesitate to sacrifice Dean if it served whatever purpose he set for himself,” Gabriel explained trying to get the point across. He saw the resignation in Sam’s eyes, but it was clear the hunter still didn’t like it. “Look, Sam. I get it. How do you think I feel killing something so close to being you? But it has to be done.”

Sam couldn’t hold himself back anymore, as he pulled Gabriel into a tight hug, resting his cheek against the archangel’s head, until they heard a throat clear. “Got something else you wanna tell me?”


	22. Chapter 22

Sam let go of Gabriel enough for him to turn and face Bobby as well, but didn’t let him go far, keeping his arm around Gabriel’s waist. “It’s been a very eventful few days since I woke up,” Sam said with a shrug. 

Bobby narrowed his eyes at the archangel, who met him with a raise of his own eyebrow as the old hunter considered the situation. Granted the little pixie had died for Sam and Dean, then pulled Sam away from the pit. Regardless of all the other problems that had apparently caused, he’d still done right by his boys in the end. Between that and the fact that he could tell from Sam’s stance that he would fight for the little archangel to his dying breath, he decided he might as well just accept it. Finally, he just huffed and said, “Apparently.”

Sam grinned. From Bobby that was his blessing. After learning that they had four more hours before Dean and fake Sam’s plane landed, Sam turned to the other questions he had while they waited. “So how are you alive?” Sam asked the old hunter. 

“Cas brought me back,” Bobby told him. 

“But Cas was dead too,” Sam said even more confused. 

“He got brought back too. Presumably by the big man himself,” Bobby told him. 

“Okay so you and Cas are alive, Dean thought I was alive, but he was living with Lisa?” It seemed every question he had brought up a dozen more. 

“Feather-brain flitted back to heaven. Sam…well whatever he is…stayed away from Dean. That was my first clue that something was off. Said it was cuz he didn’t want to interrupt their happy family but now…”

“He knew Dean would have slowed him down,” Gabriel finished. 

“Yeah. They didn’t hook back up til a few weeks ago. Djinn Sam was tracking went after Dean and they worked a couple cases since then. Dean kept in contact with me for the most part, but Sam forbid me from telling him he was alive. Shoulda done it anyway.”

“No. You did the right thing Bobby,” Sam assured him. “If you had Dean and Lisa would surely be done by now. I’m glad he has that, and he needs to hold onto it. Once we handle this issue, and get your soul back, he can go back to them and we can all be a normal family for once.”

“You think it’s that easy to get out?” Bobby asked him. While he was glad that Dean had found some measure of happiness, he knew that it wouldn’t last. There was no such thing as a retired hunter. Just live ones and dead ones. 

“It can be with me involved,” Gabriel said smugly. 

Bobby looked curiously at the archangel and saw that he really meant that. He intended to keep looking out for the Winchester boys and he couldn’t help but feel grateful. “Well alright then,” he said as he sat back down. 

“Same goes for you, old man. Sam and I are bound for eternity now. His family is my family. You need anything shoot a prayer.”

Bobby didn’t know what to say to that, so he went with avoidance. “You said something bout getting my soul back?”

“Sure thing. We should have time for me to play a little bit,” Gabriel said with an evil grin. He snapped his fingers and Crowley appeared in the room. Sam felt a brief moment of panic as he realized that they weren’t in the room with the devil’s trap, but then he realized that Gabriel didn’t need a trap to keep one little demon in line. “Crowley, old friend,” Gabriel said with a malicious grin. 

“Loki,” Crowley said distastefully. “Or should I say, Gabriel. That’s the word on the street anyway.” 

Gabriel was annoyed that his identity was out, but it hardly mattered now anyway. The only two brothers he was afraid of were in the cage. Besides, an archangel would inspire more fear than a pagan god in the demon anyway. “For once, the word is correct. That hardly negates the debt you owe me though,” Gabriel drawled. 

“What debt?!” Crowley protested. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten just how you ended up becoming ‘King of the Crossroads’? And now ‘King of Hell’ I hear. Congratulations on your promotion by the way,” Gabriel said pointedly knowing full well that he would never have been poised to take over hell if it hadn’t been for his previous position that Gabriel helped him get. What’s more, Crowley knew that he knew. 

Crowley’s eyes narrowed. He may be a demon, but he always paid his debts. Plus, he knew that he would just be a puddle on the floor if the archangel Gabriel decided to stop playing nice. If it hadn’t been for the side deal he had going that would allow him to take his revenge later, he still probably would have put up more of a protest, but instead he just said, “What do you want?” 

“Bobby Singer’s soul,” Gabriel said with a smirk, which just widened as the demon looked around noticing the two other occupants at the back of the room. 

“And if I say no?” Crowley asked. That was his prize, hard won, and well-earned. 

“Then we’ll just have to hope the next person in line is more cooperative,” Gabriel threatened lazily. 

Crowley glared at all three of them before he said, “Fine. The deal is cancelled,” and disappeared. 

Sam just barely managed to catch Bobby before he hit the floor. Apparently he took the whole thing back. Sam helped him to a chair and asked, “You think you could do something about his legs?” 

Gabriel walked over and thumped the old hunter on the forehead and he stood back up with a sigh of relief. “Did you seriously sell your soul to be able to walk again?” Gabriel asked incredulously. 

“Do I look like a damn fool to you? I LOANED my soul so he could have a deal to track down Death for us so we could carry out YOUR idiotic plan,” Bobby snapped irritably. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes, not rising to the old man’s attitude. “Well you’re welcome anyway. And we should get going Sam-a-lam. The plane should be landing soon. Toodles,” he added cheekily to Bobby as he and Sam disappeared. 

They arrived in the main terminal of the airport long enough for Gabriel to see what gate they were arriving at and then they appeared at the gate to wait. It looked like the flight was delayed though, so Sam felt free to bring up a subject that he hadn’t wanted to mention in front of Bobby. “About the bond. You said that my soul was trying to go back to my original body,” Sam said getting a nod from Gabriel who wondered where he was going with this. “But you thought it was in the cage,” Sam continued as he saw his point dawning on the archangel. “And that’s why you started this whole bond thing so my soul wouldn’t end up in hell.”

“But your other body wasn’t in hell. That explains why the pull was so strong. So I could have just let you go,” Gabriel said evenly. 

“Do you wish you had?” Sam asked not sure if he wanted an answer to that. 

“No,” Gabriel said without hesitation. “Now if you had asked me that a week ago you’d have gotten a different answer, but now? No. I don’t regret a thing.” 

“But if you had known that my other body was out of hell?” Sam asked. 

“I wouldn’t have done it, so I’m glad I didn’t know,” Gabriel told him. “Why? Do you wish we weren’t bound?” 

“Well it would have been nice to have a choice, but I can’t complain about the outcome,” Sam said honestly pulling Gabriel in for a kiss, keeping it PG given the fact that they were in public. “I’m glad you didn’t know either,” he finished softly, pulling a rare genuine smile from the archangel. 

Gabriel pressed one more quick kiss to Sam’s lips before saying, “So how do you wanna do this when they get here?” 

“What are my options?” Sam asked, knowing that Gabriel had a few. 

“Well we could pull the old switcharoo so he doesn’t notice. There would still be explanations but there wouldn’t be any drama about the thing with him. Or we could disguise ourselves and ambush them away from the crowd, do the explanations, and then dispose of the fake. Or I could dispose of the fake and then do the explanations without the switcharoo.”

Sam considered it for a moment. The first way could be problematic. Especially explaining why they didn’t need to do the errand that Bobby sent them for, then getting him someplace private enough they could explain everything. The second way would be a nightmare. He doubted the soulless version of him would go without a fight. The third option was possibly the worst though. Dean would throw a complete fit if Sam was suddenly gone, and wouldn’t even slow down to listen to the fact that the real Sam wasn’t some trick of Gabriel’s. “The first option would be the best I think. Make the switch, and then follow us out while I get him to a motel or something and we can hash everything out.” 

“Perfect. That was my favorite too,” Gabriel said cheerfully. Sam just rolled his eyes. Of course it was Gabriel’s favorite. It involved trickery and subterfuge. It seemed they had worked out the plan just in the nick of time too as the plane was taxiing to the gate. “Soon as they are in sight, I’ll take care of it. I can’t sense them so I won’t be able to get the placement right during the switch if I can’t see them,” Gabriel explained as they watched the doors waiting for the people to start filing out.


	23. Chapter 23

Sam spotted them rounding the corner and it was like looking in a funhouse mirror for a second before Sam suddenly found himself standing next to Dean as he was talking. “And never again, Sam. I swear. I don’t care who the hell needs what, I will never step foot on another plane.” 

Sam couldn’t help but chuckle at that. It figured that would be the first thing out of Dean’s mouth as they came off the plane and he couldn’t help but be glad that he missed what the other him had surely had to put up with on such a long flight. “Whatever you say, Dean,” Sam placated him falling back into the easy rhythm they shared. 

“Don’t patronize me. I mean it. We’re taking a damn boat back,” he said shortly. 

“You do realize that far more boats sink than planes do crash,” Sam pointed out. 

“Yeah but I can swim. I can’t fucking fly,” Dean said irritably. 

Sam laughed aloud, missing the look that Dean shot him at that, before he said, “Yeah okay. Let’s just go get a room. I’m exhausted,” Sam lied easily. 

Dean seemed to relax a little bit. “Sure Sammy. Whatever you say,” he threw Sam’s words back at him playfully.

Sam gave him a little shove as he said, “Jerk.”

He got the answering, “Bitch,” as he watched the tension just roll off his brother. Sam wondered for a moment if it was more a matter of being off the plane or if he had noticed something off about the other him too, and felt normal again now. 

They made their way for the nearest motel, of which there were dozens by the airport, and no sooner than they had gotten in the room, Sam said, “We need to talk.”

“About?” Dean asked wondering if he was finally going to get the truth about Sam’s odd behavior lately. 

“About me. There’s something you don’t know and I don’t really know where to start.”

“I knew it. I knew that whatever pulled you out of the pit messed you up somehow,” Dean said accusingly. 

“You’re right, but not the way you think. It’s just…” Sam trailed off trying to think how to do this. He probably should have planned better, but it’s not like he had much time. Everything was happening so fast. “This is kind of a long story and you should sit down, and please just let me finish,” Sam said. 

“Fine, but I swear to god Sammy, if you don’t tell me everything…”

“I will. We won’t leave this room until you know everything,” Sam promised and when he got a nod from Dean, he said. “Okay so I guess it starts back at Stull. Gabriel was resurrected…”

“Gabriel! I should have known that little shit was behind this,” Dean interrupted.

“Would you just shut up and listen,” Sam snapped. Dean complied with a glare. “Gabriel was resurrected right before everything went down and he showed up just as I got control from Lucifer. He switched me with a copy and the spare rode Lucifer down to hell. The fight with Lucifer really did a number on me though and I was unconscious and Gabriel was trying to keep me in one piece. He couldn’t leave the room where he stashed me at all, so neither of us knew the other me had been pulled from the pit. Meanwhile my soul was restless, it was being pulled in two different directions by the two different versions of me, but Gabriel thought the other version of me was in the cage so he anchored my soul to that body and wouldn’t let it go.” Sam paused to give Dean a chance to catch up and they could discuss that part before Sam explained the bond.

“So you’re saying there are two versions of you running around? And you don’t have a soul? Or he doesn’t?”

“Right…um…guess I missed a part of it. I’m not the version that got on the plane with you. Gabriel did a switch at the airport and fixed it. Now there is only one of me and I’m fully souled up again.”

“Why now? You…the other you…was pulled out of the pit as soon as he went in. Where have you been for the last fourteen months?”

“I’ve only been awake for less than two weeks,” Sam said honestly. “We went looking for you this morning…well this morning in Indiana, Lisa sent us to Bobby’s and Bobby sent us here.”

“Lisa? How much does she know? What did you tell her?” Dean asked alarmed. 

“She knows that there were two of me, but not how or why because we didn’t know that yet, but she was worried about an imposter of me running around with you so you should probably call her and let her know that’s handled and you’re fine and with the real me now.”

“Right. Good idea. But we’re not done with this conversation,” Dean said firmly. 

“I know. I’ll just head to the vending machine and give you some privacy on your call,” Sam said, stopping when he saw the torn look on Dean’s face and added, “Just the vending machine. That’s all. I won’t be far.” When Dean nodded tersely he went outside and down the walkway to said vending machines only to be met by Gabriel. Sam glanced back at the door to see that they were out of view of the window and the door was closed so he chanced a quick kiss to the archangel’s lips. “I will tell him about us, Gabe,” he assured the archangel who didn’t look too happy about the subterfuge, and knowing that Gabriel had been listening to everything that was said. “As soon as we finish hashing this part out, I’m gonna finish the story, and then no more hiding. I promise.”

“I’m holding you to that Sam,” Gabriel said more than a little annoyed at how insecure and vulnerable he was feeling at the moment. “I won’t be a dirty little secret.”

“And I don’t want you to be. Not at all. I just want to give him a few minutes to process and ask questions and let it sink in that you’re really a good guy before I hit him with it. You and I will be sharing a bed tonight. No matter what.” They both knew that there was no way Dean was going to let Sam out of his sight without knowing where he was going and with who so if they were going to be sharing a bed, Dean would know. He waited until he saw the acceptance on Gabriel’s face before he brought up the big issue. “So is the other me taken care of?” 

“I really wish you would quit calling him that. It wasn’t you. But yes. IT is taken care of. It was disintegrated when you took its place,” Gabriel told him. 

“Good. I still can’t believe that it was walking around pretending to be me for over a year. I’m just trying not to consider how much damage it did. Not yet. I don’t have the luxury of falling into the guilt right now, but once all this is over and settled…I’m gonna need you,” Sam admitted around the lump in his throat. Just talking about it, the guilt was threatening to come over him anyway. 

“Hey. Enough. Whatever that…thing…did, it wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything wrong. Whatever damage it caused isn’t your fault and don’t you dare think that it was. You hear me?” Gabriel said firmly. 

“I agree,” Dean said coming around the corner looking for Sam, having finished his phone call. He hated having to agree with Gabriel, but he supposed he could make an exception just this once. “You obviously had no control over him and I don’t know much about the soul, but I would imagine being without one would change a person a lot.”

Sam was relieved that it didn’t seem like Dean had heard enough to spill the beans about their relationship just yet. He didn’t want his brother to find out that way. “Okay. I’ll…try to remember that.” That was the best he could promise. 

“Good,” Dean said before turning to the archangel. “Now scram. We got stuff to deal with.”

“No, he needs to stay,” Sam said. 

“Why?” Dean asked suspiciously. 

“You’ll understand later, just trust me. Please,” Sam said. 

Dean had to remind himself of what he had just said; that the other Sam’s actions didn’t reflect on the real Sam in front of him, because an hour ago, trusting him wasn’t even an option. In the end he just nodded curtly and cut his head back towards the room before he spun on his heel and started heading that way, Sam and Gabriel following. Sam and Dean retook their seats and Gabriel leaned casually against the wall behind Sam watching the proceedings. “Okay. So you said you’ve been awake for two weeks, why wait so long?” 

“Less than two weeks, about eleven days actually, and that’s a bit of a story too,” Sam said. It was now or never. Dean leaned back in his chair in a forced casual manner, and motioned for him to go on. “Well I mentioned that Gabriel anchored me to this body. He did that using his own grace, so we are bound now…”

“Bound how?” Dean interrupted narrowing his eyes at the archangel. 

“Like a binding marriage for the rest of eternity,” Sam said evenly waiting for the explosion. 

“What the fuck?!”


	24. Chapter 24

“Please tell me you can get a divorce,” Dean snapped. 

Gabriel bristled, but before he could say anything, Sam jumped in. “No. We can’t. And even if we could, we wouldn’t want to…Shut up,” Sam said quickly before Dean could make a retort to that. Just the surprise of being talked to like that by Sam had him complying. “Yes, the way it happened sucked. It would have been nice if we’d had a choice, but I love him, Dean, and we are together and we’re going to stay that way,” Sam said firmly. 

Dean winced when Sam said that he loved Gabriel. It was way too close to chick flick territory for his comfort. “And how do you know he’s not just making you feel that way? Messing with your head and crap.”

Sam heard an actual growl from Gabriel and caught movement behind him from the corner of his eye. “Gabriel, don’t. I know Dean, and I’m not going to give you the how or why because that’s personal between me and Gabriel, but I know. This is all me Dean. It’s my choice and I’m asking you to respect it.”

“Like you asked me to with Ruby?” Dean couldn’t resist the barb. 

“I’m not a demon,” Gabriel snapped heatedly. 

Sam got up and walked over to Gabriel. “I know you don’t like the insinuations, Gabe, but this needs to be aired out. I’m asking you to let me handle it. Please. You can wait outside if it’s easier for you.”

“Fine. I’ll keep my nose out of it. But I’m not leaving,” Gabriel said irritably. 

Sam leaned down and kissed him lightly. “Thank you,” Sam said before going back to Dean who was looking at him with a mixture of surprise and disgust, but he could see just a hint of acceptance there. Sam looked him right in the eye. “This is different, Dean and you know it. Not only is Gabriel, as he said, not a demon, nor is he getting me hooked on dangerous substances, but it’s also different because I’m not hiding it. I’m being open and honest about it.”

“You’re still not telling me everything. You won’t tell me how you know he’s not just screwing with you,” Dean said accusingly. 

“No. I’m not. Like I said. That’s personal. Would you sit here and tell me private things about Lisa and your relationship with her?” Dean looked a little uncomfortable about that and Sam knew he was getting through. “See. So don’t ask me to do the same. I get that you’re used to looking out for me and you know I appreciate it, but it’s time I stood on my own two feet. I’m building a life outside of you just like you have a life outside of me. Nothing wrong with keeping personal things to ourselves.”

“So what? That’s it? We just go our separate ways?” Dean asked, hurt. 

“No. We act like normal brothers. You go home to your family, I go home to Gabriel and we hang out on weekends, have a beer, go to a ball game, have big family dinners, whatever. The apple pie life Dean. That’s what you wanted. We don’t have to be glued together to be brothers.”

“I still don’t like it,” he said glaring at Gabriel. 

“I’m not asking you to like it. I’m asking you to accept it. And to accept the fact that where I go, Gabriel goes. I’m not asking you to be best friends or anything, but I expect you to respect him and not try to start shit, and before you say anything he already made the same promise,” Sam cut him off at the pass. 

“Fine. I’ll deal,” Dean said annoyed before he changed the subject. “So we gonna go do Bobby’s thing or what?”

“No need,” Gabriel said. “I already took care of it. His soul is his own again and you can save the big leverage for another time in case you need it again.” Dean looked at him incredulously. “What?” Gabriel said with a shrug. “It was a long flight and we couldn’t exactly fix all this on the plane. It’s called time management.”

“Well. Let’s go home then…” Dean trailed off at the thought of getting back on that plane before his eyes widened slightly and he looked at Gabriel. As much as he hated angel air, it was better than a plane. Maybe having Gabriel around could come in handy after all. 

Gabriel knew exactly what Dean was thinking and was waiting for him to choke out the words before he agreed, but a pleading look from Sam had him sighing as he snapped his fingers and they appeared back on the street in front of Dean and Lisa’s house. “A little warning next time,” Dean snapped, but the stern look from Sam had him echoing Gabriel’s early sigh before adding, “Thanks.”

“We still have a lot to figure out Sam,” Dean said looking between the house and his brother. 

“I know. But you know all the big stuff now. Let’s let it settle a bit. Today’s Friday, let’s have lunch Sunday, and we can go from there. How’s that?” Sam suggested. 

“Yeah. Okay. But…do you have a new number or…”

“Oh. Right. Um…” Sam turned to look at Gabriel who just snapped and a phone appeared in Sam’s hand and the hunter started pushing buttons and gave the number to Dean when he found it. “Call me tomorrow and we can talk details,” he told him. He remembered the cold look he got from Lisa when he got there earlier and didn’t know if he would be welcome there just yet so he said his goodbyes before Dean went back to the house and Gabriel flew them away, landing in the snow outside a cozy log cabin. 

“So what do you think? Build a snowman, make some snow angels, and then warm up with some hot chocolate in front of the fireplace?” Gabriel suggested. He knew that Sam had never really gotten such luxuries as a child, and he couldn’t resist the feeling of domesticity that it would bring. The feeling of home, and he wanted that with Sam. They had spent time on the beach, they had done all the vacation type stuff, but playing in the snow and having hot chocolate in front of the fire…that was home. 

Sam could see how much it meant to Gabriel, not that he knew why right now, but… “I’m not really dressed for being in the snow,” he pointed out shivering. 

“Right. Sorry. Human,” Gabriel said with a sheepish shrug and suddenly Sam was in full winter gear; coat, hat, gloves, galoshes, the works. 

Sam pretended to think about it as he bent down to get a handful of snow. “You know. It’s a nice idea and all, but I have a better one,” he said slyly. 

“Oh?” Gabriel said not noticing the way Sam was packing the snow in his hands. 

“Yeah. This…” Sam said chucking the snowball at the archangel before laughing and running for cover grabbing some more snow on the way. 

Gabriel took a second to overcome his surprise at the sudden attack, but then he grinned and grabbed his own snowball throwing it at the hunter’s retreating back. Before long they were in an all out war, Sam ducking behind the pile of firewood, that he was sure had never actually seen an axe, as he built an arsenal and hid from Gabriel’s attacks while launching his own at the archangel who kept ducking around the corner of the house. 

Sam wasn’t sure how long they’d been at it, when he felt his phone vibrate. Just as he hit answer, the tree above him shook, showering him with snow and he yelled, still laughing, “No fair! You can’t use your powers!”

“All’s fair in love and ooph!” Gabriel was cut off with a snowball to the mouth. 

“Ha! Take that! Now I need a time out!” he called before turning his attention to his phone. 

“What the hell’s going on there?” Dean asked with a chuckle of his own. 

“Snowball fight,” Sam asked. 

“In August?” Dean asked incredulously. 

“It’s not hot everywhere,” Sam pointed out. 

“Of course. Forgot you can get anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. So who’s winning?” Dean asked with a grin. 

“I would be if he didn’t keep cheating!” Sam said loudly enough for it to carry. 

Dean could hear the answering laugh from Gabriel, and he could hear the happiness in Sam’s tone. He hadn’t heard his brother laugh like that in…well…ever. If that was what Gabriel brought out in him, then he could live with that. “Well I’ll let you get back to kicking his ass in a minute. I talked to Lisa and she wanted us to do this thing with her sister’s family on Sunday, so maybe dinner tomorrow night instead? We have a nice dinner and then hash out the big stuff after Ben goes to bed?” 

“Yeah. That works. What time?” 

“Six good?” 

“Sure thing. See you then,” Sam said. 

“Yep. See you. Make sure you get him with a few from me,” Dean said laughing as he hung up. 

Sam smirked and grabbed a snowball and hurled it at the complacent archangel standing next to the house. “That one was from Dean!” he called before saying, “Time in!”


	25. Chapter 25

About an hour later they were collapsed next to each other in the show laughing. Once he had control of his laughter, Gabriel started waving his arms and legs to make a snow angel and Sam followed suit. When they were done, Gabriel grabbed Sam’s hand and transported them right outside the indentions so they wouldn’t mess them up trying to get up. Sam wrapped his arm around Gabriel and pressed a kiss to his temple before resting his head against the archangel’s. “Who would’ve thought? An angel making a snow angel,” he said happily. 

“Well a snow seraph. Can’t really do the six wings of an archangel. Not without cheating anyway,” he teased. 

Sam chuckled. “Come on. I believe I was promised hot chocolate and a warm fire.”

“Your wish is my command,” Gabriel said with a playful bow as they turned to walk back towards the cabin where the fireplace was already roaring and two mugs of hot chocolate, one with marshmallows one without, were sitting on a low table. Gabriel walked over and sat on the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace, ignoring the loveseat there and Sam followed suit, sitting behind him and pulling Gabriel back against him. Gabriel sighed happily, sipping his hot chocolate. 

Sam took a sip of his own drink before setting it back down so that his hands could roam over the archangel’s body. When he felt Gabriel tense uncomfortably as his hand roamed over his stomach, the hunter remembered his theory about the archangel being insecure about his stomach. When Gabriel tried to push Sam’s hand somewhere else, Sam just kissed his neck and whispered, “Stop it. You’re perfect.”

Apparently that was the wrong response, because Gabriel tensed up even more and then got up from the rug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said shortly. 

Sam sighed and got up too as he grabbed Gabriel’s arm to pull him to a stop. “Yes you do,” he said gently. The response he got was more than enough to confirm that. “And it’s okay. Everyone has something about themselves they don’t like. Most people have a lot they don’t like,” Sam told him.

“Yeah but not everyone has the power to change it,” Gabriel said petulantly. 

Sam gave a little knowing smile. “Then why haven’t you?” 

“Because…it’s me. It’s the way I’ve always been,” Gabriel told him. 

“And has it always bothered you?” Sam asked pointedly. 

“No. Of course not. It’s just…compared to you…”

Sam pulled him in for a gentle kiss. “But you’re not me. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else, Gabe. I think you’re perfect just the way you are, and you obviously did before. Don’t shut me out, angel,” he finished softly, having decided outside that he liked that nickname for Gabriel. Gabriel just huffed in a way that Sam was coming to realize meant agreement without actually having to admit the disagreement that started it and he smiled. “Now come sit by the fire with me, drink your hot chocolate, and let me worship every inch of that glorious body of yours.”

Gabriel couldn’t really argue with that idea so he sat back down, snuggling against Sam when the hunter resumed his place behind him. He still tensed when Sam’s hand ran over his stomach, more so when it slid under his shirt to press against the soft skin, but when the hunter’s lips and tongue started working against his neck he couldn’t help but start to relax. After a few minutes, Sam’s hands came up to start unbuttoning Gabriel’s shirt, sliding it off his shoulders little by little as he went, giving his lips more room to explore. 

“You are so special my Gabriel,” he whispered against the archangel’s neck. Once Gabriel’s shirt was unbuttoned Sam slid it off his shoulders continuing to whisper, “the most perfect thing in the whole world.” He kissed across Gabriel’s shoulders as his hands roamed firmly over the archangel’s chest and stomach.

He lay Gabriel down on the soft rug and pulled his own shirt off before shifting on top of him. He began pressing soft kisses to the archangel’s chest and stomach. “So sweet.” He moved his hands down to unbutton Gabriel’s pants. “So strong.” He slid Gabriel’s pants and boxers off in one move before doing the same to his own and going back to his previous position. “So sexy.” He added a little nibble to Gabriel’s soft stomach. 

He slid a lubed finger into the archangel, flicking his tongue in Gabriel’s belly button. “I’m yours my wonderful Gabriel.” He pressed against Gabriel’s prostate and Gabriel arched his back looking for more, his hands roughly running over Sam’s back. Sam’s finger started pumping in and out. “All yours, until the end of time.” He added a second finger picking up the pace as they were both aching by now. “You are priceless to me.” He was panting now from the effort of holding back as his lips continued trailing over Gabriel’s stomach. “I’ll never give you up.” He inserted a third finger pumping furiously as Gabriel was moaning beneath him.

“I’ll never hurt you.” He slid in slowly and began rocking his hips gently. “I’ll never leave you.” He leaned down to kiss Gabriel who moved a hand to the back of Sam’s neck and kissed him with everything he had as he lifted his hips to meet Sam in perfect rhythm. Sam slowly increased the pace and was thrusting in and out of the archangel. When they broke for air Sam moved his lips back to Gabriel’s neck and Gabriel’s hand moved up to rest on the back of Sam’s head. “I will always love you.” His hand moved between them and began stroking Gabriel’s cock as he started moving faster and harder. “I will…treasure you…forever.” He latched his lips onto the sweet spot on Gabriel’s neck and sucked on it as the archangel spilled over between them gasping Sam’s name. Sam was pulled over the edge with him and as he rode out his orgasm his sucking turned back to gentle kisses. “My perfect Gabriel,” he whispered as he pulled the archangel to his side.

 

“Sam?” Gabriel whispered, overwhelmed with feelings. 

“Hmm?” the hunter hummed sleepily. 

“You’re incredible,” Gabriel said softly as he burrowed deeper into the hunter’s arm as Sam drifted off to sleep. Gabriel didn’t think he would ever figure out how Sam always knew exactly what he needed. Falling for Sam Winchester was the best thing he had ever done. 

Sam woke peacefully the next morning if it hadn’t been for the pain in his back. When he looked around he realized why. He had slept all night with nothing but a bearskin run between himself and the floor. He groaned as he tried to roll a bit, pressing a kiss to Gabriel’s lips as he did so. “What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked curiously. 

“Sleeping on the floor hurts,” Sam told him matter-of-factly. 

Gabriel chuckled and splayed a hand over Sam’s lower back, healing all his aches and pain. “Sorry. I keep forgetting how fragile you are,” he said sheepishly. 

Sam rolled his eyes and pulled Gabriel tighter nibbling playfully on his neck. “So we gotta go chase some chickens or milk a cow to get breakfast around here?” he joked.

“Hmm just for that I might make you,” Gabriel laughed biting Sam’s earlobe and making him yelp, but breakfast appeared on the table anyway. “Go eat Sasquatch,” Gabriel told him smacking Sam’s ass as he got up. Gabriel didn’t blame him really. They had missed dinner after all and their lunch was more like a brunch. No wonder Sam was starving. 

“By the way,” Sam said as he was eating. “Dean called last night and we’re doing dinner tonight instead of lunch tomorrow at his house with the family.”

“Deano’s actually letting me near his family? Wow. Color me surprised,” Gabriel said only partially in jest. 

“Yeah well, I guess he figures I can keep you in line. So please…”

“Best behavior Sammykins. Cross my heart.”

“Thank you, Gabe.”

“Might as well call him back and tell them not to cook. It’s way easier for me to just snap it up then for them to cook,” Gabriel offered. 

“Thanks. That’s very generous of you,” Sam said surprised. 

“Don’t get used to it,” Gabriel said with a wink. As a rule, he didn’t really do generous, but it really was effortless for him to create a meal for the ages, so he might as well play nice. For now, at least. 

“What time is it in Indiana?” Sam asked. He had no idea where they even were. Or even if they were still on earth or in the earthly dimension. He was reasonably certain that time was working on the same scale at least. No way would Gabriel pull something like that again. 

Gabriel scrunched up his nose for a second as he thought. “Seven AM,” he decided. 

“I’ll wait a few hours then.”


	26. Chapter 26

Sam and Gabriel spent the day wrapped up in each other, right up until it was time to go to Dean and Lisa’s. They knocked on the door at six o’clock on the dot, and Dean opened it right away, giving Sam a cheerful smile, and even managed a polite nod to Gabriel. Lisa had read him the riot act last night about accepting his brother’s relationship and letting him make his own choices, so he would try to do just that. She had been the one that insisted they all have dinner together too. 

Lisa was still a little on edge about the whole soulless Sam debacle and she wanted to check the real one out for herself, and she wanted to know what all this meant for their future. She knew that the only reason Dean went back out hunting again was to watch Sam’s back, but this Sam had an archangel to watch his back. Surely he wouldn’t need Dean anymore. And of course there was the fact that she was finding it beyond surreal that she was having an archangel over for dinner. And not just any archangel, but the most famous one. The messenger. The archangel that had announced the birth of Jesus. 

She greeted them cheerfully, with just a hint of wariness and a lot of nerves when they came in. Her heart sank when she saw they were empty-handed. Had Dean misunderstood what Sam said. “I…um…I thought you were bringing the food?” she asked confused. 

Gabriel gave her a charming smile. “Already on the table, doll,” he said with a wink. 

Dean grit his teeth at that, but jumped back into the conversation. “Before we call Ben down, a few things. No talk of anything not human during dinner. No talk of hunting, of being on the road, or anything. We can talk more freely once he’s upstairs for the night.”

“Not even the fact that I’m…”

“Not even that,” Dean said with a look that dared Gabriel to disagree. 

“Ok, but only if you promise we can discuss the matter later,” Gabriel said.

Dean nodded curtly. He could discuss it, but that didn’t mean he would change his mind. “Oh and I told Ben that Sam was sick, that something messed up his mind and that’s why he’s been so mean since he came back but that it’s all fixed now.”

“Yeah. Probably pretty difficult to explain the nature of souls to a kid,” Sam told him. 

“Hell, it’s difficult to explain it to a human,” Gabriel grumbled good-naturedly, earning him a playful smack from Sam. 

Lisa called for Ben to clean up for dinner and then as they walked into the kitchen, Lisa’s jaw dropped. Gabriel had spared nothing. He was certainly used to living in the lap of luxury and knew how to show it. There was a full seven course meal laid out, including desert, and a bottle of wine. “This is…” 

“Hey, gotta make an impression when meeting the in-laws,” Gabriel joked. 

As the four of them settled around the table, Ben came in and looked around wide-eyed while Gabriel was pouring the wine. “He getting any?” the archangel asked Dean and Lisa. 

“One glass?” Dean suggested. 

“Half,” Lisa compromised. It was a rather special occasion and Ben was thirteen now. 

Gabriel poured Ben his half glass. “This is the best wine on the planet. Picked it up back in...” Dean cleared his throat. “Tuscany a few years ago.” He mouthed a quick ‘sorry’ at Dean when Ben wasn’t looking. He was used to pretending to be something he wasn’t, but pretending to be human was a new one. Even when he pretended it was usually as a pagan god which wasn’t much of a stretch. 

After Gabriel’s near slip, they ended up having an enjoyable meal. Lisa talked about her job search, Ben talked about school, and Dean bragged about Ben’s grades and baseball skills, sounding for all the world like a proud father. They made it through the meal without any catastrophes and Ben headed up to his room to do his weekend homework as he usually did in the evenings while the other four headed to the living room. 

No sooner than they sat down, Gabriel decided to bring up the subject that was to be continued before. “Ben needs to know what I am,” he said bluntly. 

“No. I don’t want him having any part of the supernatural world,” Dean said firmly. 

“You won’t have a choice. Most supernatural beings would take one look at that kid and know he’s a Winchester, and then what do you think they’ll do,” Gabriel told him. 

“But he’s not…” Dean started and then trailed off when he saw the horrified look on Lisa’s face. He narrowed his eyes at her and said, “We WILL talk about this later.” She nodded nervously. 

Gabriel had the good grace to look a little sheepish. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a secret,” he said honestly apologetic. 

“It’s okay. It needed to come out eventually. I just…” she trailed off and when it was obvious she wasn’t going to say anything more, Gabriel continued. 

“Anyway. Wouldn’t you rather he know to pray to me if he gets in trouble rather than walk around unprotected.”

“You would…” Dean stopped as he tried to wrap his head around what Gabriel was saying. 

“Of course I would,” Gabriel said knowing exactly what he meant. “He’s family, and despite my rather poor excuse for one that means something to me. I can’t guarantee I won’t drive you guys nuts, but push comes to shove, you have my protection, whatever that means.”

“I…thank you Gabriel,” Dean said in awe. 

“Yeah whatever. Now enough with the touchy-feely crap. He needs to know,” Gabriel said more than a little uncomfortable at the open gratitude. 

“Yeah. We’ll tell him tomorrow,” Dean said admitting that Gabriel was right. 

“But we’re keeping the story about Sam,” Dean said needing to get some ground back. 

“Of course, but maybe since he’ll know I’m an archangel, tell him I fixed Sam to explain the rapid turn-around,” Gabriel suggested. 

“Yeah. Okay. But now we have other things to talk about. Give us a while Lis?” Dean asked. 

“No. I can guess what this conversation is going to be about and I want to be here for it,” she said daring him to disagree. 

After a silent argument, Dean sighed heavily. “Fine. We need to decide where we go from here. You know. With the job and all.”

“You obviously want out, Dean, right?” Sam asked already knowing the answer. 

“Yeah. I do. But if you’re out there…”

“I never wanted in in the first place,” Sam pointed out. “I was just worried about keeping you alive and then fixing one mess after another. You think I’m not gonna take the chance to get out while I still can?” 

“You really think it’ll be that easy?” Dean asked hopefully. 

Gabriel made his first foray back into the conversation. “I can put wards over the area to keep anything out, strengthen the wards on you and add them to Lisa and Ben. It’s not perfect protection, but it’s pretty close.” Dean was once again struck dumb by the archangel’s offer. “What? If you’re back in, then Sam’s back in and I’m stuck following you morons around trying to keep you alive all the time. No thanks,” Gabriel said lazily. 

“Okay that all sounds good, but there’s just one more problem. See when Sam…well his body…was pulled from hell, someone else was resurrected too,” Dean said biting his lip, not knowing how any of them were going to take this. 

“Who?” Sam asked nervously. 

“Samuel Campbell,” Dean said. 

“Our grandfather?!” Sam exclaimed. 

Lisa looked nervously towards the stairs. “Don’t worry. I soundproofed the room. He won’t hear anything,” Gabriel told her in an aside. “There’s usually a lot of yelling involved when I’m in the same room with them,” he joked. 

“The one and only,” Dean said wryly. “And he and some of Mom’s cousins have a team that are hunting something called alphas. They’re…”

“Are they fucking stupid?!” Gabriel cut in with a roar. “They have no idea what they’re messing with!”

“Well they do now. Damn alpha shifter nearly killed us all and we threw a whole damn arsenal at the thing,” Dean said. 

“Oh please. The alphas are the least of their worries. If they’re hunting alphas, then the mother is going to get involved and trust me buckos. Nobody wants to kick that hornet’s nest.”

“The mother?” Sam asked. He seemed to be the only one in the dark about the alphas so he would ask Gabriel later. 

“The mother of all monsters. She created monsters just as my father created humans. You start going after her firstborns and an angry momma grizzly is gonna look like a cuddly kitten compared to her, and not even I can take her on.”


	27. Chapter 27

“What the hell is he thinking?!” Gabriel asked Dean heatedly. “How does he even know they exist?”

Dean held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t ask me. None of them would tell me anything. I did get the feeling he was working for someone though. Don’t know who.”

“Damn it!” Gabriel cursed as he started pacing. “Don’t suppose you guys would consider relocating?” he asked Dean and Lisa hopefully. 

“Why? We just moved in here,” Lisa asked. 

“I mean to a different planet or another dimension,” Gabriel said wryly. “Because this one is going to the dogs.” 

“Can’t you…I don’t know…do something? Anything at all?” Sam asked knowing that Dean would never accept that. 

“I don’t know. It depends on how far it’s gone. If she’s already involved, I’m out,” Gabriel said. He would kidnap everyone in this house, and probably Bobby too just for good measure and they could live with it. He thought better of saying such though. “If they haven’t pissed her off yet…maybe.” 

“What do you need from us?” Dean asked ready to back Gabriel up if needed. 

“Nothing. Well no. I need Sam to come with me what with the whole bond thing, but you can just stay put.”

“If Sam’s going then I’m going,” Dean said firmly. 

“What you think I can’t protect him?” Gabriel scoffed. 

“Then you can protect us both just as well,” Dean said. “One last job then we’re out. Come what may. Right Sammy?”

“Right,” Sam easily agreed. 

“Fine. But both of you stay close,” Gabriel ordered as he stood. 

“You’re going now?” Lisa asked. 

“The longer we wait the worse things will be,” Gabriel told her. “Sorry to eat and run. Thanks for having us. We’ll have to do this again sometime,” he added hastily. 

“Do you know how long you’ll be?” she asked, hoping that Dean would still be able to go with her to her sister’s tomorrow. 

“We should be back by morning, but if not I’ll make sure Deano here checks in,” Gabriel told her knowing that the question was directed at him as the only one with any chance of answering it. 

First stop was old grandpa Campbell. They needed to start at the bottom and work their way up. They appeared in the center of the old garage they were using as base, and true to form with hunter’s there were suddenly a barrage of bullets and knives headed their way, but Gabriel just waved a hand and they all stopped dead in their tracks and all the guns jammed before they clattered to the floor. “What the hell?!” Samuel said heatedly. 

“I should be asking you that. What the hell are you thinking going after the alphas? Do you have any idea the shitstorm you’re about to unleash?” he asked meeting their hostility with his own. 

“And why should we listen to you?” Christian Campbell asked from behind them. 

Gabriel turned to look at him and narrowed his eyes. He thought he’d smelled a demon. The demon’s eyes widened as he finally got a look at Gabriel, who until that moment was blocked from his sight by Sam and Dean. Gabriel threw out a hand and the demon in the kid doubled over as his eyes turned black, causing the rest of the group to gasp. “Who do you work for little demon?” He knew who to get the answers he needed from now. 

“Bite me,” the demon gasped. 

“Now now. You should know that archangel trumps demon. I will get the answers I want. You just get to decide how easily,” Gabriel snarled. 

“Archangel?” they heard Gwen stage whisper and all the others were now watching with rapt attention. 

“You won’t…harm this vessel,” the demon gasped in pain. 

“I don’t need to harm the vessel to torture you, little demon. What they don’t teach about archangels at demonic Sunday school anymore? I’m hurt.” He twisted a finger and the demon screamed in pain. “We’re just getting started. I can do this all day. Now who do you work for?” 

It took another finger twist and another scream before the demon gasped out, “C-Crowley.”

“I should have known,” Gabriel sneered. “What does he want with the alphas?” The demon shook his head, obviously scared of Crowley. Gabriel made him screech again and cough up black tar and Sam and Dean had to hold Samuel back. “Speak!”

“P-Purgatory,” the demon cried. 

“There now. Was that so hard?” Gabriel asked patronizingly before he wave his hand and a black cloud flew out of Christian’s mouth and then Gabriel clenched his hand and extinguished it and the young hunter, free of the demon, crumpled to the ground. Gabriel took a knee next to him and placed a hand on his forehead. “He’s fine. He’ll wake up soon,” he announced to the room. He reached out for Sam and Dean. “Come on. We’ve got a King of Hell to string up.” They were gone before anyone could ask any of the hundreds of questions they had. 

They reappeared in Crowley’s lair. “Well well. Look what the cat dragged in. And you brought dumb and dumber with you,” the demon drawled. 

“Are you stupid or just plain suicidal,” Gabriel snapped. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Crowley said casually leaning against the wall with a smirk. 

“You do realize that going after the alphas is going to wake the mother right? And if she wasn’t bad enough there is crap in purgatory that would make my father crap his pants, and you want to open the door?” 

“Like I’m going to listen to you,” Crowley said defensively despite the worry that was cropping up. His sense of self-preservation was very strong after all and if the archangel was right, and let’s face it he would be one of the few beings in the world who would know, then his current plan could well be a disaster. 

“Okay. I don’t feel like a history lesson so here’s how we’re gonna do this. You leave purgatory alone, leave the alphas alone, and abandon this whole ridiculous plan, and you can keep hell. Keep going, and I will destroy you and anyone else who is a part of this plan so that no one ever attempts it again, find a demon I can manipulate, and install him as King of Hell. Your choice.”

“You have no idea who’s in this with me,” Crowley said smugly. He knew Gabriel’s weakness was family. He had managed to wheedle that much information out of his clueless partner. 

“I will find out. And you know I can,” Gabriel hissed threateningly. 

“Oh, no need. I’ll tell you,” Crowley said. He was going to enjoy this. He was resigned to giving up on his plans to save his own ass, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get a few blows in in the meantime. “My partner is none other than your brother…Castiel.”

Gabriel growled as he slammed Crowley against the wall with his own bare hands. “You stay the hell away from my family you slimy little worm.”

“Temper, temper,” Crowley drawled, hiding his nervousness. “Do we have an agreement?” Gabriel asked through clenched jaw. 

“Yes yes. No more purgatory, no more alphas, yadda yadda.”

“And you let the ones you have go,” Gabriel said narrowing his eyes, not willing to give the snake a way to wriggle out of it. 

“Fine,” Crowley said with a heavy sigh. “And in return you leave me alone to run hell in peace.”

“Deal,” Gabriel said with finality. Crowley leaned forward and kissed him hard on the lips and Gabriel just took it. For a second. Long enough to seal the deal and then he wrenched himself away, wiping his lips and gagging while Sam glared heatedly at Crowley and Dean looked on uncomfortably. 

Gabriel pulled himself back together. “Okay kiddies. One more stop. Time to knock some sense into my idiotic baby brother,” he said as he grabbed the brothers and disappeared again. 

They reappeared in a clearing in a forest and Sam and Dean looked around. “Where is Cas?” Sam asked curiously. 

“He’s in heaven. I’m not stepping one foot up there. I called for him. He should be here as soon as he can,” Gabriel told them. 

“Okay so since we’ve got some time why would you bother letting Crowley live? Why not just kill him? One less demon in the world,” Dean asked suspiciously. 

“Because Crowley is, above all else, a businessman, and businessmen can be reasoned with. As far as demons go, he has the skill and ambition to rule, but not the uncontrolled bloodlust of most demons. He’s a snake and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him, but given the options, he’s most useful right where he is. Control in hell is much better than a bunch of beasts running around without direction,” Gabriel explained and both of them could admit that he had a point. 

The silence following that speech was broken by a voice, “You called for me brother?” 

“Cassie, Cassie, Cassie,” Gabriel said shaking his head sorrowfully, not even turning around. “Working with a demon? Trying to open a door father himself ordered closed forever? How have you fallen so low?” He finally turned to fix disappointed eyes on the seraph. 

“I had no other choice, brother. Raphael is determined to reopen the cage and restart the apocalypse. I cannot fight him. But if you have returned…” he finished hopefully. 

“No. Not a chance. I’m not getting involved in the affairs of heaven. You’ll be happy to hear that the cage cannot be opened again, by any means, so his threat is an empty one,” Gabriel told him. 

“So we are simply to be subjugated to him?” Cas asked. 

Gabriel had no sympathy for him though. Sure Raphael would be a crap ruler. Cruel and harsh, but he couldn’t risk messing with the earth too much so all the problems would stay in heaven and he stopped caring a long time ago. “If you don’t like it, leave. That’s what I did.”

“We are in the middle of a civil war, Gabriel. There are thousands fighting with me. You expect us all to leave our home without a fight?” he asked incredulously. 

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no idea things had gotten so bad. Raphael was the last archangel in heaven. He was in charge by default, but Gabriel knew that their father would never allow Raphael to rule and thus neither could he. He may have washed his hands of the matter, but he was still a loyal son. “Wait here,” he told Cas and Dean and took Sam’s hand as he disappeared. When he reappeared less than two minutes later, he was cradling an old horn and he held it gingerly out to Castiel, clearly despondent about parting with it. 

“Gabriel!” Cas gasped, eyes transfixed on the item his brother was holding. “I couldn’t…”

“You have to. I will not return to heaven. Ever. But you can. Take it Cassie. Take it and blow. Unite heaven under you and Raphael will bow as well,” Gabriel said, looking away sadly as the seraph took the horn gingerly and a spark lit the clearing as the horn was bound to its new owner. “But you must never tell anyone about me. Ever,” Gabriel told him. 

“I understand, brother. Thank you,” Cas said in awe as he disappeared. 

“Gabe?” Sam asked putting a hand on his bonded’s shoulder. “You okay?” 

“I will be, Sammy.” He reached up and patted the hunter’s hand. “I will be. Let’s go home.”


	28. Chapter 28

Sam and Gabriel, after dropping Dean off at home, appeared back at the cabin. “So this is home now?” Sam asked. 

“Well I was thinking we could spend a week at each of my properties in this dimension and then you could pick,” Gabriel suggested. 

Sam smiled, glad that he was getting a say in it at least. He was starting to feel like he was being yanked around on a leash. “Yeah. That works,” he agreed. “So how many places do you have?” 

“Twelve in this dimension,” Gabriel told him. 

“And in other dimensions?” Sam asked. 

“Twenty seven total, including the twelve here.”

“Maybe one day we’ll go check out the others,” Sam offered. They both knew that one day meant when there was nothing left for Sam in this dimension after Dean was gone. 

 

Lisa was waiting up for Dean when he got back. “How did everything go?” 

Dean sighed. “That was a convoluted mess, but we got everything sorted. Shouldn’t be any more problems, but I’m sure Gabriel will be keeping an eye on things.”

“That’s good.”

“So we need to talk,” Dean said now that they were alone. 

“I know,” she said looking down at the floor. “I lied the first time you popped back into our lives because I thought you were just another unemployed drifter. By the time I found out the truth, you were on your way out again. Then when you came back last year…I wanted to make sure you were gonna stick around before I told you. I was about to, but then Sam popped back up and you were back on the road more often than not and things were so up in the air…I didn’t want you to stay just because Ben was your son,” she explained. 

“It wouldn’t have mattered if I was just another unemployed drifter. I still deserved to know Lis. God, when I think about what could have happened if a demon or vampire or something had happened across him and smelled the Winchester in him and I would never have known…”

“I’m sorry. I never thought of that. I never knew…You know that’s as much your fault as it is mine though. You wouldn’t tell me anything about monsters. How could I have known it would be an issue. You can’t keep cutting me out. I need to know what to watch out for and when to call for help.”

Dean forced calm at the thought. He still thought he had a right to know, no matter the circumstances, but that didn’t matter now. “Okay. I’ll give you a crash course in avoidance, but don’t be stupid. If you come across something you call for help. Immediately. No matter what. Got it?” She nodded and he added, “But not tonight. It’s late and we’re still going to your sister’s tomorrow and then we have a couple hard conversations with Ben.” 

 

Ben ended up being ecstatic that Dean was his father after all, and when he found out that his uncle was an archangel, he was in shock. Dean had agreed to give Ben the same crash course as Lisa so that he would know what to watch out for and how to be careful and they were both instructed to pray to Gabriel in any emergency. It was a few years before that was needed though. Ben had been the last one in the locker room after one of his baseball games and was on his way out when he smelled sulfur. He got a shiver up his spine, but before he could pull out his phone to call his dad, he was pressed against the locker being choked. “Uncle Gabe help!” he managed to croak out and it was less than a second before a furious archangel was standing in the locker room and the demon was the one being choked against the wall. 

“Who sent you?” Gabriel snarled. “How did you find him?” He needed to know if this was just a chance encounter or if someone was actually targeting them. 

“I…I didn’t…” the demon stuttered wide-eyed. He knew better than to mess with an archangel. “N-no one s-sent me. I was here for o-other business and I s-saw…”

Gabriel let him go and just yanked the demon out and killed it. He’d heard all he needed and the demon’s stuttering was starting to annoy him. That taken care of he turned to Ben who was watching him in awe, and he pulled the teenager into a comforting hug as he checked him over, healing the slight bruising to his trachea. Ben didn’t let it go long though before he pulled himself out of the embrace and looked appraisingly at Gabriel. “You’re kind of a badass, Uncle Gabe,” he said appreciatively. He had never seen the archangel as anything but the fun-loving prankster before. 

Gabriel chuckled. “Yeah. Kinda in the job description,” he joked. “Someone here to pick you up?” 

“Yeah, Mom and Dad should be waiting by the car,” Ben told him and Gabriel, not sure he wanted to let Ben out of his sight just yet, transported both of them out there, a judicious use of his powers making sure no one saw.

“Gabriel! I didn’t think you were coming today. Where’s Sam?” Dean asked. 

“I wasn’t planning to come. Sam’s still at home. Ben had a little demon mishap, but don’t worry it’s handled,” Gabriel finished quickly. 

“I smelled the sulfur, but before I could grab my phone he attacked so I called Uncle Gabe,” Ben said wanting to assure his father that he hadn’t tried any heroics. 

“He did good. The thing had barely opened his mouth to say anything before I got there. Turned out he was here on other business and spotted a Winchester so no one’s after you. Just a random encounter,” Gabriel assured them. 

“I can’t thank you enough for this, Gabriel,” Lisa said pushing the tears away as she pulled Ben into a crushing hug and the teenager rolled his eyes and allowed it for just a minute as Dean clapped a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder in thanks. 

“I can fly you guys home real quick if you want, just to be on the safe side,” Gabriel offered. 

Dean started to say no, still not a big fan of angel air even after all these years, but Lisa beat him to the punch with a, “That would be great, Gabriel. Thank you.” Dean just grimaced as they appeared in their garage. 

Dean and Gabriel had become reasonably close friends over the years, and Gabriel came and bailed them out a few more times when something got too close, or even healing non-supernatural related injuries. Ben had been on track for a baseball scholarship before he tore his ACL in his championship game his junior year and they were all glad Gabriel was on hand to heal that one. 

Time passed and Gabriel kept Dean and Lisa as healthy as he could as long as he could, but eventually death took them. Once they were gone, Sam and Gabriel started exploring all of Gabriel’s extra-dimensional properties, never spending much time at the beach where they first found each other, but popping in for a few days every now and then. They still had Ben and his kids and grandkids after all. By the fourth generation after Dean though, they had mostly lost touch with the family and were freer to spend their time in dimensions that moved faster in time. 

They never heard anything else from heaven so assumed that everything was going all right up there. There had been any mass exodus of angels, nor any major angelic troubles on earth so really, neither of them cared. They just continued their lives, blissfully, Gabriel enjoying showing Sam not only the world, but all of the worlds in all of the dimensions. They would certainly never get bored.


End file.
